Arthur S. Link

Woodrow Wilson--scholar, reformer, orator, warrior, and peacemaker--was a visionary whose successes place him among the great presidents, and whose failures leave questions that still haunt the late twentieth century. A vigorous, attractive leader in his time, he has come down to posterity as a grim figure, yet he brought a fresh spirit to American politics as he took our nation irrevocably into the arena of international leadership. This is the first biography based on the full corpus of Wilson papers and letters, and covers his public and private life as well as portraying the politicians, statesmen and world leaders among whom he moved.--From publisher description.

Woodrow Wilson and his Presbyterian inheritance -- Woodrow Wilson : the American as Southerner -- Woodrow Wilson and the study of administration -- Woodrow Wilson in New Jersey -- Woodrow Wilson and the Democratic Party -- "Wilson the diplomatist" in retrospect -- Wilson and the ordeal of neutrality -- Woodrow Wilson and peace moves -- President Wilson and his English critics : survey and interpretation -- The higher realism of Woodrow Wilson -- The case for Woodrow Wilson -- The Wilson movement in Texas, 1910-1912 -- Democratic politics and the presidential campaign of 1912 in Tennessee -- The Underwood presidential movement of 1912 -- The Baltimore convention of 1912 -- Theodore Roosevelt and the South in 1912 -- The Negro as a factor in the campaign of 1912 -- The progressive movement in the South, 1870-1914 -- The South and the "new freedom" : an interpretation -- The cotton crisis, the South, and Anglo-American diplomacy, 1914-1915 -- The Federal Reserve policy and the agricultural depression of 1920-1921 -- What happened to the progressive movement in the 1920s? -- Laying the foundations of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the economic and political crisis in Great Britain, 1816-1820.

"In 1993, as Link was concluding the publication of the last of 69 volumes of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, journalist James Robert Carroll sat down with him to talk about his life's work and the man at its center. This book, which is that engaging conversation, explores Wilson the man, the politician, the historical figure and the legacy.". "The story of the assembly of the Wilson papers is told here, too. It is an equally compelling tale of dogged perseverance, the job of discovery and marvelous luck.". "As Link makes clear, Wilson's defeat on the League was rooted not in intransigent idealism but in well-hidden medical calamities that came upon him when he most needed his strength and skills. On this unfortunate happenstance of nature was built the future catastrophes and global political upheavals of the rest of the Twentieth Century."--BOOK JACKET.

This book represents an attempt to comprehend and recreate the political and diplomatic history of the United States from the beginning of the disruption of the Republican party in 1910 to the entrance of the United States into the First World War in 1917.