Herbert Clark Hoover

I hope the reader will believe that I am informed and hope he will credit me with objectivity in analysis of President Wilson's high endeavors, his evangelistic idealism, his successes, his difficulties, the purpose of his compromises, and the consequences of the Treaty of Versailles. With thirty-nine years of contacts with world affairs since that Treaty, and the aid of the mass of subsequent information and disclosures, I can possibly contribute to an understanding of the gigantic tragedy which enveloped Woodrow Wilson and the whole world. This book is not a life of Woodrow Wilson. It includes no part of his scholastic or political activities prior to the looming of the American involvement in the war. - Preface.

Hoover's first book. Wildly successful, often reprinted, and still available. "True" First Edition (in my observation) has: "Hill Publishing Company" (soon to become McGraw Hill) on the spine and title page; no reference to "edition" or subsequent printings, impressions, or thousands; and most interesting, in the second line of the PREFACE, "Stamford" instead of "Stanford" (Columbia is spelled properly). The copies I've seen have a pencil line through the "m" of "Stamford" -- perhaps an informal correction after printing. There could be, of course, other typos. Pages vii and 1-199 numbered. Issued, I think, without dust-jacket. Stanford, Cornell Engineering, Harvard, LOC. and perhaps others have "True" First Editions; others are mostly later. HathiTrust and Gutenberg have 14 digitizations but only 2 "True" First Editions (Cornell and Harvard).

This is a translation from the first Latin Edition of 1556, with biographical introduction, annotations and appendices upon the development of mining methods, metallurgical processes. This book is a scientific classic based on field research.