Woodrow Wilson

September 14, 2009
If we must have another presidential biography, best to have one of a figure who hasn't had his life written about at length for two decades. While the Wilson we find here differs little from the man we've known before, Cooper's new book is an authoritative, up-to-date study of the great president. Cooper (Breaking the Heart of the World
), a noted Wilson expert at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, offers balanced and judicious assessments of the life and career of one of the nation's most controversial leaders. From his youth in Virginia, through his years at Princeton, then as New Jersey governor and president, Wilson faced thickets of challenges, not all of which he managed effectively. At the end, sick and weakened, characteristically stubborn and moralistic, he notoriously failed to gain American membership in the League of Nations. Yet Cooper, while sympathetic to his subject—a visionary and Progressive reformer in domestic politics—fairly records Wilson's Southern racism along with his keen intellect and political acuity. Wilson would come to be, Cooper concludes, “one of the best remembered and argued over of all presidents.” While not stemming any disputes, this book will please and inform all readers. 16 pages of photos.

Starred review from October 1, 2009
A noted Woodrow Wilson expert comprehensively examines the life and career of America's 28th president.

Generally acknowledged among the country's great presidents, Wilson's proper placement within the pantheon nevertheless creates more argument among scholars than perhaps any other. While acknowledging Wilson's dismal record on race and civil liberties, Cooper (History/Univ. of Wisconsin; Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson, 2008, etc.) comes down firmly on the president's side, rejecting the caricature of the high-minded intellectual out of his depth in the messy political arena. The author believes, as Wilson himself did, that his academic background—first as an exceedingly popular professor, then as Princeton's reform-minded president—prepared him perfectly for the political battles he later faced as New Jersey's governor and, of course, as president. Above all, Cooper stresses, Wilson was a teacher, his goal not so much to inspire the American people in the fashion of his greatest rival, Teddy Roosevelt, but rather to educate them, appealing to public opinion through his writing and oratory. Domestically, he enacted progressive legislation that prefigured some of the New Deal. After maneuvering to keep the country neutral during World War I—he was narrowly reelected on the slogan,"He kept us out of war"—Wilson proved a surprisingly energetic commander in chief. By the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, he was arguably the world's most acclaimed leader, but from there his presidency turned tragic. In part because of his disinclination to compromise, but largely because of a debilitating stroke that literally paralyzed his last year and a half in office, Wilson failed to persuade Congress to ratify the Treaty of Versailles or to join the League of Nations. Cooper is especially good on this"worst crisis of presidential disability in American history"; Wilson's uncommonly close attachment to the women in his life; his Civil War–era boyhood in Virginia; the battle for educational reform at Princeton; and the role played by important presidential advisors like Joe Tumulty and Colonel House.

Cooper exhibits complete command of his materials, a sure knowledge of the man and a nuanced understanding of a presidency almost Shakespearean in its dimensions.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from September 1, 2009
Cooper (history, Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison; "Breaking the Heart of the World"), arguably our leading Wilson authority, offers a comprehensive, felicitously written biography aimed at scholars but accessible to general readers, too. As Cooper notes, this "schoolmaster in politics" transmitted his thoughts on papera habit helpful to historians. Cooper mines Wilson's letters as well as the archival materials of Wilson colleagues. He admires Wilson for his faith, learning, eloquence, and executive skill while conceding that he had to learn foreign policy on the jobyet established America as an international player. Cooper considers Wilson hard-headed, with limited goals (World War I concluded not with total victory but with an armistice to save as many lives as possible). Unlike other scholars, Cooper claims that the Virginia-born Wilson was not an "obsessed white supremacist" but that his collegial governing style allowed cabinet members to introduce segregation throughout the federal government. And while his attorneys general violated civil liberties both during and after wartime, Cooper claims that FDR's abuses were even worse. VERDICT Highly recommended; readers are invited to wrestle with Cooper's favorable interpretation of Wilson's legacy and arrive at their own conclusions.Frederick J. Augustyn Jr., Library of Congress

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2009
A meticulously researched life of the Progressive Era president, Coopers portrait of Woodrow Wilson provides realistic depictions of the person and historical assessments of the politician. Wilsons salient traits included adherence to Presbyterianism, an active libido, and an intellectualized passion for politics. Cooper taps these anecdotal sources over the course of his chronology from Wilsons upbringing in the postCivil War South to the demise of his presidency as an ineffectual invalid. Wilsons abundant writing, including stacks of love letters, books on government (some still in print), speeches, and state papers, must have posed a formidable challenge; the fluency of Coopers narrative demonstrates he mastered it. His Wilson is one general-interest readers can understand both sui generis and as a man of his times. Espousing morality in politics, Wilson was indifferent to blacks and sanctioned infringements of civil rights, and although dedicated to peace, he led America into World War I. Capturing Wilsons complexities, Cooper presents the personality behind one of the most consequential presidencies in American history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)