Wilson

Written by A. Scott Berg

Narrated by Jeremy Bobb

In the tradition of Truman, John Adams, and Team of Rivals, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning biographer of Charles Lindbergh, Maxwell Perkins, and Samuel Goldwyn sheds new light on a president and his presidency in a way that redefines our understanding of a tide-turning historical moment.

One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg has completed Wilson—the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the twenty-eighth President.

In addition to the hundreds of thousands of documents in the Wilson Archives, Berg was the first biographer to gain access to two recently discovered caches of papers belonging to those close to Wilson. From this material, Berg was able to add countless details—even several unknown events—that fill in missing pieces of Wilson’s character and cast new light on his entire life.

From the scholar-President who ushered the country through its first great world war to the man of intense passion and turbulence, from the idealist determined to make the world “safe for democracy” to the stroke-crippled leader whose incapacity and the subterfuges around it were among the century’s greatest secrets, the result is an intimate portrait written with a particularly contemporary point of view—a book at once magisterial and deeply emotional about the whole of Wilson’s life, accomplishments, and failings. This is not just Wilson the icon—but Wilson the man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Sep 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781442365889

A. Scott Berg

A. Scott Berg is the author of four bestselling biographies: Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, winner of the National Book Award; Goldwyn; Lindbergh, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; and Kate Remembered. He lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews for Wilson

[msaucier818 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An outstanding biography on the life of Woodrow Wilson. I had never read a book focusing on Wilson, and I feel that I learned a great deal. I never knew how many Progressive accomplishments Wilson was able to usher through as President. I knew that he often personally went to Congress to make an appeal about an issue, but I didn't realize how often he used this technique, or how effective he was as a speaker. He truly was an idealist, but he believed that the world could be a better place, and rather than be upset with the American public when they voted for Republican candidates rather than Democrats like himself, he approached it mentally in a way that he believed the people had made a mistake and he needed to convince them that they were wrong. I find that attitude a bit refreshing in our current political mood where candidates often demonize the other side. Overall a great read and highly recommended.

[Veit Johnson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was the most insightful book on the life of President Wilson. In reading the book I felt like the author allowed me to get to know President Wilson and the members of his family and those that were on his staff. I highly recommend this book.

[newsieq · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When a world history professor asked us about what prompted students to sign up for her class, I said I wanted to know about how World War II started. She said that the Second World War was really World War One, Part 2. That the punishments levied on Germany in the Treaty of Versailles were so onerous that they almost guaranteed another war. Of course Woodrow Wilson was a key player in the Treaty of Versailles. That alone piqued my interest in Wilson.But A. Scott Berg’s portrait of President Wilson paints a portrait of a multi-faceted man. A preacher’s son who didn’t want to preach. A lawyer who didn’t care for the practice of law. A professor who was “most popular” wherever he taught. A college president who turned Princeton from a party campus to a highly regarded academic institution. A governor who turned his back on the corrupt politicians who brought him to power. A United States president who got things done and was hated by his Republican opponents so much that they sabotaged the League of Nations he had single-handedly fought for among the allied powers. A “rock star” among world leaders. And a writer of passionate love letters to both of his wives. Wilson, the biography, will be appreciated by non-academic readers for its breezy style – and, yes, a 700-plus-page tome can be breezy – and for its even-handed treatment of its subject. I found myself wanting to pick the book up at odd hours and I never tired of the story. And Wilson, the man, will be appreciated for his many fine qualities -- and even his not-so-fine moments are put into context and made understandable. I particularly enjoyed the chapter that outlined how the Wilson administration changed the country after its entry into World War I -- what a massive job they had! Just feeding the military recruits was a logistical accomplishment. I had no idea a president could be so “hands-on.” If only every biography could be as well-written and as interesting as Wilson!

[Desander Más · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful book that provided insights into Wilson’s rationales (segregation of government & refusal to negotiate with H C Lodge over League). Would have liked more about his handling of the 1918 Flu Epidemic and its dramatic effect on America & Europe.

[chris.wolak · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I didn't know much about Wilson prior to reading this biography and had assumed the most interesting part (for me, anyway) would be the years during World War I. However, I was surprised to find myself completely engrossed in Wilson's earlier life, his college years, and his time at Princeton as a student, professor, and president. The World War I section and Wilson's negotiation of the treaty and fight for the League of Nations was interesting, but not as engrossing as his earlier years. Berg does such a fine job of presenting a rounded human being and showing how his good traits and not to good traits both helped and hindered him as a politician.

[schmerguls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

5527, Wilson, by A. Scott Berg (read 22 Jan 2018) This book came out in 2013 and even though I had much enjoyed Berg's Pulitzer-prize winning biography of Lindbergh, which I read 30 Mar 1999, and his biography of Max Perkins (which I read 3 Mar 2006) I decided not to read it then since I had read six volumes about Wilson by Arthur Link in June and July of 1980 and had read Arthur Walworth's two-volume Pulitzer-prize-winning biography of Wilson in April 1999. But when I read on Jan 9, 2018, Ross Gregory's book on the entrance of he U.S. into World War One I thought it so interesting that I decided it ould be worthwhile to read this biography of Wilson now. I am glad I so dcided. Berg's book concentrate's more of Wilson's personal life though histime as a professor at and president of Princeton is ully covered as are his time as Governor of New Jersy and his election and activity as President. It is all unfailingly absorbing reading, as is the account of the doleful time after his stroke on Oct 3, 1919, as he persisted in being president though so severely handicapped. Obviously he was a brilliant man but also flawed in stubbornly insisting that , against the good advice he was given, refusing tocompromise and enable the U.S. to jin the League of Nations. He of course was right that there would be another war because of the failure of the League of Nations--and of the failure of his efforts to have the treaty ending World War One be less vindictive. So there is much sadness in the book but it is highly dramatic and well-witten. I am glad I decided to read it.

[cyderry · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In this current day and age when presidents are either career politicians or from the military, how wonderful would it be if we had candidates that were thinking of the good of the nation and not their own pockets and careers?Thomas Woodrow Wilson appears to have been such a man, thinking first of the citizens and their needs before his own. He was an academician who was elected Governor of NJ and from here to the White House. If Teddy Roosevelt hadn't decided that he wanted to get back in the Presidency, and hadn't split the voters, I'm not sure that Wilson would have been elected, but Wilson's presidency was at time when the nation needed his constancy and clear head.He was responsible for the Federal Reserve Act, Federal Trade Commission, and the Federal Farm Loan Act. He also was a major player in the plans of the League of Nations at the end of World War I. I'm not sure that the man gets his just recognition.A very informative book and the even with the volume of pages, still a good source for Wilson's bio.

[5hrdrive · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If it's possible for a man to be over-qualified to serve as President, Woodrow Wilson was that man. His mind ran circles around everyone else in politics and we could use that mind today. And he had morals - I know - a politician with morals... shocking! A terrific book.

[jacoombs_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Overrated. More an apologia than a biography, there is virtually no issue involving Wilson's career where he was not merely right but saintly. Too much emphasis on trivia means that, by the time we arrive at the cornerstone of Wilson's Presidency - management of the war effort and negotiation of the peace (which the United States ultimately did not sign), key issues are condensed or overly simplified. Mr. Berg writes well, but a modern balanced perspective on Wilson remains outstanding.

[widsith_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Woodrow Wilson's rise to power must surely be the most vertiginous of any US leader. In October of 1910 he was still a middle-aged career academic, who had probably already suffered at least one minor stroke and who had never even run for public office. In November 1912, he was elected President of the United States.It was a trajectory that brought its advantages and its disadvantages. His total lack of any grounding in practical politics tended, surprisingly, to work in his favour a lot of the time: he was motivated by grandiose strategic and ethical ideals rather than by partisan tactics, and this not only caught the public's imagination, it took the Senate by surprise as well. They supported him, at least in the early years, in what sometimes seems more like bewilderment than belief. Wilson's extraordinary skills as an orator didn't hurt, of course. The last president to compose all his own speeches, he couldextemporize for an hour or longer without a pause or misplaced word. He thought in metaphors, spoke in perfect sentences, and composed entire paragraphs in his head, relying on a superior vocabulary.On the other hand, his meteoric ascension also meant that there were big gaps in his knowledge. As a political historian he was familiar with the machinery of Washington, but of the wider world he understood basically nothing. It may seem surprising that a biography of someone who served from 1913 to 1921 should contain not a single mention of foreign politics or world affairs for the first two hundred and fifty pages; and yet this is not unrepresentative of its subject, ‘whose [international] worldview,’ says Berg, ‘hardly extended beyond England's Lake District.’ After Wilson was elected, he chuckled to a colleague that ‘it would be the irony of fate if my administration had to deal chiefly with foreign affairs’ – pause as modern readers bite their knuckles – and the importance he placed on international diplomacy can be summed up nicely by the fact that he tried to appoint a pacifist Quaker to the post of Secretary of War (A Mitchell Palmer, who declined).When it came to home affairs, he was liberal and progressive, opposed to big business, and a vocal supporter of women's suffrage. Unfortunately, his overall record on social justice is marred by a race relations policy that was dilatory at best and racist at worst. He was, for instance, the first president to introduce segregation for black workers at the White House, which led editor James Weldon Johnson to give him ‘the discreditable distinction of being the first President of the United States, since Emancipation, who openly condoned and vindicated prejudice against the Negro’. Berg is, I think, too generous in suggesting that Wilson ‘did not equate segregation with subjugation’ but rather ‘considered it a way for Negroes to elevate themselves’; even in passing judgement, the author gives the impression of praising him with faint damnation, by characterising his position as ‘genteel racism’. Genteel racism?!War broke out in 1914, though of course America in those days liked to be fashionably late to such occasions. Wilson pushed hard for a policy of neutrality, winning his second term primarily on the slogan ‘He kept us out of the war’. Though submarine warfare and the Zimmermann telegram eventually made this position impossible, I found Wilson's neutrality fascinating in light of how he himself would later treat opponents to the conflict. Just look at what happened to the great socialist leader Eugene Debs. He was thrown in jail in 1918 for urging Americans to resist the draft, and he remained locked up for several years after the war was over as Wilson repeatedly denied calls for his release. Although before the war Debs had been within his rights to protest, Wilson said,once the Congress of the United States declared war, silence on his part would have been the proper course to pursue. […While] the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines, sniping, attacking, and denouncing them.Quite apart from the observation that impropriety is not the same as illegality, one has to pause over the fact that Wilson himself had spent three years arguing – while tens of thousands of boys were being massacred at the Somme and Verdun – that Americans should take no part in the conflict. It's something I wish this biography had taken note of and explored a little.It was after the war that Wilson really came into his own. Of all those involved in the Paris Peace Conference, only Wilson was a truly great statesman; he towered over Lloyd George and Clémenceau (politically speaking – though I guess he was taller than them too), who were caught up in often rather petty nationalistic concerns. Wilson thought bigger. He looked forward to a world where peace was guaranteed by an international body that superseded the nation-state, and wrote the League of Nations into the very beginning of the Versailles Treaty. I am a passionate believer in this idea, the forerunner of the UN (whose benefits in my opinion far outweigh its many deficits), and for this reason alone Woodrow Wilson is something of a hero to me.Unfortunately the Treaty of Versailles became Wilson's great tragedy. Mired in party politics when he returned to Washington, Wilson failed to convince his political opponents of his vision and the Senate refused to ratify the treaty. After it had been worked on for six months by the major leaders of the world and even signed by the enemy, only thirty-eight Senators backed it when it came to a vote. When the League of Nations met for its first assembly in November 1920, the US would not be present.Berg lingers extravagantly over the tragedy of Wilson's final years, reinforcing the sense of hagiography that recurs throughout the book (each chapter begins with a Biblical epigraph where Wilson's life is equated with Christ's). The writing in general is inoffensive but without any flair, and sometimes a little pompous:For this momentous address, he summoned the country's most successful speechwriter, one of its foremost historians, one of its first political scientists, one of its most elegant wordsmiths, a spiritual thinker to provide moral grounding, and, finally, his most trusted stenographer to get it all down on paper. There in the second-story study, Woodrow Wilson sat alone.Some critics who have read both this and John Milton Cooper Jr.'s biography prefer the Cooper version. At any rate, whoever you read, Wilson's ideas and his reputation probably are due for a revival, and on the main issue, after all, history soon vindicated him along with so many others. He said in Paris that any treaty must be ‘founded on justice’ and that ‘excessive demands would most certainly sow the seeds for war’, especially with no credible international body to mediate. He was right; and all those junior officials like Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had been peering over their bosses' shoulders in Paris, would soon have problems of their own to worry about.

[busterrll · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well written - I now think even less of him than I did before - Segregationist- Reintroduced segregation into the government bureaucracy.The first page summed it up wonderfully - Wilson separated people into two categories Enemies and slavesWanted nothing but yes men before him. Excellent read - One has to wonder how he got away with all that he did.

[lindapanzo · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an interesting, readable book about the professor, college president, historian/political scientist, author who became our 28th president.Even though the book was about 800 pages long, the author had a lively writing style that kept me interested. He also included a whole lot of interesting information, both the expected, such as about his youth, his years at Princeton, his presidency, and, in particular, the time spent negotiating the peace after World War I, and the unexpected, such as the fact that Wilson was the first president to attend a World Series game.Most interesting, I thought, were the parts about Wilson's years as an academic at several institutions, primarily at Princeton, and then as the university's president. Also especially interesting were the portions dealing with Wilson's late in life illness and the role of his second wife, Edith, who, unknown at the time, played an important role in running the U.S.Despite this, I thought the book was overly long. The author seemed to fall in love with his subject and, at times, went on and on, particularly as to the peace process and the fight for the League of Nations.I'd recommend this book but not strongly.

[octafoil40 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Having read the author's excellent previous book on Lindbergh, I was eager to read the present book. His current within book is excellent and well footnoted. I highly recommend this book !

[thosgpetri · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well researched and well written, I really like this book. It is a very detailed account of Wilson's life and his many accomplishments as a scholar and as a politician. As president of Princeton he worked hard to create a college equal to any other university from what had been described as a country club for wealthy young men. as U, S. president he reformed much of the accepted way of politics in America. During WWI he worked hard to keep the country nuetral, but when German attacks on American shipping made that impossible he put the country wartime footing and got Congressionl approval to declare war on Germany. After the war Wilson gave his plans for world peace in the form of the League of Nations to the world, but America's Congress never ratified the treaty. Many nations signed on but without U.S. involvement it was unworkable. However it is the basis of the United Nations. Wilson suffered a stroke towards the end of his term,leaving his wife and doctor to run the country until his term expired. He was a great man as the book details, but like all of us he was not perfect. but his ideas and ideals carried him to greatness. The book puts the reader in touch with these ideas and ideals and in showing how he made his ideas work and the obsticels he overcame. His life long struggle to put his ideas to work is what makes this book so engrossing.

[doondeck · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A superbly written history of one of our great presidents. It is amazing to realize how many of Wilson's ideas still hold currency today. He comes across as an extremely principled man - something rare in today's political world.

[heatherms · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you want a comprehensive book on Woodrow Wilson, you have found it in A. Scott Berg's book titled simply "Wilson." The book is almost 800 pages of highly researched and thoroughly entertaining and informative information about our 28th president. I realized as I was reading it that I really did not know anything about this president. After reading it, I know a lot and I feel it was an excellent use of my reading time. Highly engrossing and often hard to put down, which is the goal of any book!If you like to read about history and about American presidents, then you will highly enjoy this book.**This book was received through GoodReads Member Giveaway. This did not influence my opinion in any way.**

[nelliemc · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is an in depth biography, very well researched and well written. That's the good part. The unfortunate part is that Berg obviously has set out to redeem Wilson and make him an admirable, if tragic, figure. In doing so, there's too much analysis of what Wilson said and wrote for public consumption and not enough analysis of what Wilson revealed about himself when he wasn't being political. In short, I found this to be too one-sided and, ultimately, did not find this to be a multi-dimensional biography.

[pinklady60 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Woodrow Wilson is brought to life in this biography by A. Scott Berg, a Pulitzer Prize winning author whose other books I have enjoyed. Berg describes the 28th President of the United States as the architect of much of the last century who redrew the map of Europe. He recounts Wilson’s life as a young pastor’s son, his leadership at his dearly loved Princeton, his rise to the Presidency during World War I , and his life after politics until his death.As with Berg’s other biographies, the details are impeccably researched with a favorable view given to Wilson, while minimizing his failings, such as his attitude about race relations. A lot of information is packed into the 700 plus pages, some of which is redundant. The major portion of the book is given to Wilson’s trip to Europe to negotiate peace and to convince leaders of other countries to forego their national interest in favor of long-term global needs. His main goal was to create a League of Nations, for which he paid a high price.Overall, I enjoyed learning about Wilson, a complex man who stuck to his values even when it seemed everyone was against him.

[zimbawilson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Simply put, this is a stunning achievement of a biography. A. Scott Berg has done a remarkable amount of research to compile this 700+ page tome yet the writing is never dull. Many bios/histories of this scope read like a tech manual for a washing machine, that is to say, boring as hell. I have to admit I was leery of this book for that very reason. Berg however, manages to not only write in a fine narrative style that smartly incorporates many quotes from original letters/documents that keep this fascinating account flowing but also analyzes the facts and historical situations that give great insight to Wilson and his times. From his upbringing in the South during and after the Civil War as a pastors son, to his visionary leadership at Princeton to his eventual rise to NJ Governor and finally US President Woodrow Wilson was an orator of unequaled skill. He wasn't always able to convert his detractors with these skills but they most certainly led him on his political ascension. It is fascinating (and ultimately sad) to see the parallels of Wilson's fight against the class inequalities of his day in comparison to today's. There are many instances of moneyed interests, patronage an corruption at all levels of government that so closely resemble what the US is going through today. If I took anything away from this great biography it was that not only does history repeat itself, but you have to constantly monitor and fight these same forces again and again.

[craigeri · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was fortunate enough to have received a copy of A. Scott Berg’s “Wilson” from the Library thing to read and review. President Wilson has been someone who I have read and studied as a hobby because so much of his Presidency affected my family. World War I saw some members of my family in the service of their country while other issues of the time affected my whole family. I have read another biography, and many books addressing the times around Wilson’s Presidency. I have visited his Presidential Library and his home in Staunton Va. and Columbia S.C. The people that care for his library are truly dedicated and spent as much time as I needed to get my questions answered. I am just a prolific reader of history who happens to be interested in President Wilson’s life and times.With the little amount I have done to get to know and understand Woodrow Wilson I feel I have barely scratched the surface. Then, A. Scott Berg spends a decade investigating and writing a detailed account of Who Pres. Wilson was and was not and writes the biography “Wilson”. He goes into detail on all aspects of Wilson’s life but does not bore you with the details but leaves you wanting to know more. Pres. Wilson is so complex and Berg introduces you to him and helps you understand the complexity. He doesn’t necessarily judge the subject but lets you decide why Pres. Wilson did things the way he did. This book is probably one of the best written on Pres. Wilson and for that I am grateful to have read it.Thank you A. Scott Berg and Library Thing. Craigeri

[frank_juliano_5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A. Scott Berg has already proven himself a capable, thorough and unbiased biographer, with earlier volumes on as such figures as Charles Lindbergh and Katherine Hepburn.Woodrow Wilson, though, must have presented a particular challenge, as here was a subject who had published many books and essays himself, some with contradictory information.Berg's biography of Wilson is particularly strong in demonstrating the ambition, and at times the ruthlessness of the man who most of us only know as the tall, bespectacled man waving a black top hat in grainy, black and white silent movies.Wilson would cut off long-term friends without a word when he felt wronged -- and that seemed to happen a lot. He remarried soon after his beloved first wife died, ran on a platform of "He Kept Us Out of War and then promptly got the US into World War I. During that year of war, Wilson pushed through a law so intrusive into personal privacy that it makes the 2002 Patriot Act seem impotent.Sickly all of his life, Wilson tended to suffer severe headaches and even small strokes whenever the stress got to be too much, and in his last month's in office, devastated by the failure of the US to join the League of Nations he faded from view.Berg's achievement here is to show Wilson in all his complexity.

[susan11-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

woodrow wilson was a complex man ,he truly wanted peace for the world and the country but i think his ideas were ahead of the times he lived in, his faults were many,the inability to compromise made him a poor pol. i believe wilson was a racist and can not give the times he lived in as an excuse,he was late getting into the war and this caused aloss of many lives. he comes across as a stern unbending man who could not forgive his friends for any disloyalty.on the plus side hr was abrilliant man.he truly believed in peace. it always amazes me how a great writer can bring to life a man i did not have any interest in.i enjoyed this book very muchand would like to thank librarything

[santhony_35 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read an excerpt of this biography in Vanity Fair and when I saw it listed in Library Things’ Early Reviewer program, which provides pre-release versions of soon to be published work, I snapped it up. I agreed to provide this review in exchange for receiving a copy free of charge.When you think about it, it is somewhat surprising that more focus has not been directed at Woodrow Wilson, or the period surrounding the First World War, because the topic is rich with history and import for the United States and its role in world politics. Woodrow Wilson was a fascinating individual and his rise to the Presidency was very unlikely, to say the least. Wilson went from admittedly highly regarded President of Princeton University, to Governor of New Jersey, to President of the United States in very short order. He benefited from the schism in the Republican Party which saw the popular Theodore Roosevelt split and form a third party, allowing Wilson to win the Presidency with only 40% of the popular vote.In this biography, the author engages in the time honored practice of hagiography when presenting his subject, but perhaps not to the extremes seen in other political biographies. While Berg minimizes many of Wilson’s flaws and weaknesses, he does at least mention them and give them some airing, most particularly relating to his scandalously weak record on race relations. It is a frequently made mistake to judge historical personages by current mores and practices (for example, condemning the Founding Fathers for owning slaves), however, Wilson was lacking, even when judged by existing standards. Not only did he not advance race relations during his two terms, he actually rolled back advances initiated by his Republican predecessors, resegregating the Civil Service and allowing his Cabinet Secretaries (some of whom were rabid race baiters) to initiate egregiously discriminatory practices. Wilson was a son of the South, raised during the Civil War, and had the kind of views on race relations you might therefore expect. Had he been around in the 1950s, he would have been a Jim Crow Democrat.More importantly, however, Wilson does not come across as a very good politician. He was an exemplary public speaker and debater, and an unquestionably highly intelligent person, but his people skills were certainly lacking; a colder more vindictive person you will hopefully never encounter. You could be the closest of friends and supporters for years and years, then have one disagreement on principle and you were dead to him. He won his first election due to the split in the Republican Party that swept his party to control of both Houses of Congress and barely squeaked by in his second. While in office, the Democratic Party steadily lost ground in Congress, leaving him with a Republican House and Senate that he was powerless to control. His political adversaries hated him with vehemence far in excess of that explained by mere partisan differences. His poor people skills and his condescending attitude prevented him from accomplishing much that could otherwise have been attained, including his beloved League of Nations.In a controversial analysis, performed by virtue of interviewing one of his contemporaries, Sigmund Freud diagnosed Wilson as suffering from a “Messiah Complex”, a diagnosis that Berg ridicules, however it should be noted that Berg himself has labeled each chapter in this biography with a reference to events in the life of Christ, with scriptural quotes that equate the life of Wilson with that of Jesus Christ; a little bit over the top in my opinion.In this biography, Berg has done an outstanding job of researching and setting out the events and historical landscape that formed and shaped Wilson’s life, from birth through the sad end of his Presidency. The period from turn of the 20th century to the beginning of the Great Depression has been one largely ignored (with the exception of the life of Theodore Roosevelt). This important work largely remedies that deficiency by focusing on the life and seminal Presidency of the period. I can highly recommend this biography for that fact, and the happy coincidence that it is well written and easily enjoyed.

[dhelmen · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I approached this as duty more than pleasure and was pleasantly surprised. Wilson is one of the presidents I felt I should know more of, and Wilson, by A. Scott Berg, gave me the context, the facts and the analysis to be able to gain a wide view of this President. While presenting fact and analysis, it was an interesting read. The language flows beautifully and clearly and I was glad to win this advancy copy to review. After reading this, the Wilson presidency and the history surrounding it are in a better perspective for me. I highly recommend it both for pleasure and information/