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Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace
Professor Arthur S. Link, Director and Editor of The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, brings his considerable expertise and understanding of Wilson the man and the diplomat to this reexamination of Wilson's handling of foreign affairs. Link explores the ideas, assumptions, and ambitions that guided Wilson's methods of forming policy, and his diplomatic techniques. The author also goes on to consider some of the larger questions concerning Wilson's desire for neutrality, American entry into World War I, and Wilson's fight for American membership in the League of Nations.
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1954
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About the author
Arthur S. Link
139 books2 followersA graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Arthur Stanley Link was a longtime historian specializing in Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era. Link taught for most his career at Princeton University, with the exception of an 11-year interval he spent at Northwestern University. The author of 30 books, he is most notable for writing an incomplete multi-volume biography of Wilson and editing the 69-volume Papers of Woodrow Wilson.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 1, 2024
Arthur Stanley Link’s five-volume biography of Woodrow Wilson stands as one of the great monumental studies of an American president. Thorough yet readable, it remains an essential resource for anyone seeking to better understand his subject’s life and achievements. Yet Link’s decision midway through his writing to shift his focus to providing a published edition of Wilson’s papers meant that his final volume ends with America’s entry into the First World War, leaving it well short of the definitive work it could have been.
Link’s choice adds to the value of this short book. A thoroughly revised version of the Albert Shaw Lectures he delivered in 1957, it provides his highly informed insights into many of the subjects left unaddressed by his larger work, such as Wilson’s wartime peace program, his efforts at the Paris Peace Conference, and his doomed fight to win Senate ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. While no substitute for what he might have written in the remaining three volumes he projected, it nonetheless provides an excellent assessment based on Link’s extensive familiarity with Wilson’s ideas and goals. Even with the author's pro-Wilson bias, this book remains an enduring study of Wilson’s foreign policy, one that is still necessary reading for understanding his contribution to redefining America’s role in the world.
Link’s choice adds to the value of this short book. A thoroughly revised version of the Albert Shaw Lectures he delivered in 1957, it provides his highly informed insights into many of the subjects left unaddressed by his larger work, such as Wilson’s wartime peace program, his efforts at the Paris Peace Conference, and his doomed fight to win Senate ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. While no substitute for what he might have written in the remaining three volumes he projected, it nonetheless provides an excellent assessment based on Link’s extensive familiarity with Wilson’s ideas and goals. Even with the author's pro-Wilson bias, this book remains an enduring study of Wilson’s foreign policy, one that is still necessary reading for understanding his contribution to redefining America’s role in the world.
November 3, 2014
This is a very helpful primer on the foreign policy of Woodrow Wilson and a vindication of his presidency. A word of caution though: some might find it too apologetic and bordering on hagiographical.
December 9, 2016
I have to agree with fellow reviewers that Link's retelling of Wilson's foreign policy is so hagiographic as to be useless for those of us who actually want to understand Wilson's role in international affairs. In a 120-page book, Link doesn't attribute a single mistake in American foreign policy to Wilson until past page 105, and then it is couched entirely within the context of Wilson's altered mental capacity post-stroke. Before then, any error in judgment is explained by Wilson's idealism and visionary understanding of progressive liberalism. That, or it's pawned off on the incompetence of his subordinates, like Lansing or House. The idea that any president could be infallible is laughable enough, but that Wilson, who had to contend with one of the most complicated eras in the history of American foreign relations, and who was pitted against Lloyd George and Clemenceau in Paris (no small feat), was perfect in his decision-making shows just how impossibly biased Link is in his interpretations and analysis.
February 14, 2019
This is a book loaded with insight on the Wilson administration's foreign policy efforts. It's not as exhaustive as a biography, but gives deep insight into his progression from neutrality to being a wartime President to pushing for a peaceful world order anchored in a League of Nations. It's good to read this one as a supplement to a broader biography.
July 31, 2020
Yeah soooooo this author really, REALLY likes Woodrow Wilson. That's not inherently problematic, but in this case it made reading the book a whole lot less of a delight. I can best describe the tone of the book as defensive and sycophantic. Half of the book is factual information, but the other half is the author desperately going HEY GUYS ALSO BY THE WAY WILSON WAS A PERFECT HUMAN BEING AND NOTHING BAD THAT HAPPENED WAS EVER IN ANY WAY HIS FAULT AND ALSO HIS MOTIVATIONS WERE ALWAYS SO PURE HE WAS A SAINT YOU GUYS DO YOU HEAR ME HE WAS A GODDAMN SAINT PLEASE LOVE WILSON AS MUCH AS I DO PLEASSSSSSSSE Like dude....chill out. I only came here to learn more about the guy, not to join the Cult of Woodrow....
May 6, 2023
Old book from Melvyn Leffler’s class. Entirely too positive in favor of Wilson. The editor of the Wilson paper fell in love with his subject. Goes in the donate pile.
September 1, 2023
The author does not present a balanced opinion at all. He greatly admires Wilson and ignores all of his flaws while also defending him on petty issues.
February 20, 2015
This was an entirely different take on the man Woodrow Wilson and his presidency than anything I had read before. It was clear the author was a big fan. Arthur Link's scholarly expertise on all things Wilson belies an ostensible affection for his subject. He extols the virtues of Wilson's religiosity underlying his politics. Wilson, he writes, was a peace-loving Southerner (Virginia) transplanted into the Northeast (New Jersey) whose idealism included such beliefs as America's special role as a world leader intended to guide the nations to harmony and loftier heights.
Naturally, the culmination of any Wilson biography is a description of his efforts to craft the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, and ultimately his role in torpedoing that same treaty from passage in the United States after his health deteriorated in Colorado while on a publicity tour throughout the American West.
The historical aspects of this book are interesting, as are the insights into Wilson's thinking and his relationship with leaders of Western nations and the U.S. Congress. But the author's objectivity seemed to be lacking in light of a "Wilson can do no wrong" tone. Wilson played a significant role in galvanizing the nation at a time of world war, but he also expanded and militarized its government and saw himself as a bit of a president-king whose authority should be unfettered.
Wilson's aims of world peace through a League of Nations and America's leadership in fostering self-determination among those nations, naturally with some loss of sovereignty, all seem benevolent enough. But largely missing is any mention of the fascist means employed to accomplish those goals through ever expanding institutions and concentration of power among a handful of elitists. I am not convinced after reading this book that Wilson could do, and did, no wrong.
Naturally, the culmination of any Wilson biography is a description of his efforts to craft the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I, and ultimately his role in torpedoing that same treaty from passage in the United States after his health deteriorated in Colorado while on a publicity tour throughout the American West.
The historical aspects of this book are interesting, as are the insights into Wilson's thinking and his relationship with leaders of Western nations and the U.S. Congress. But the author's objectivity seemed to be lacking in light of a "Wilson can do no wrong" tone. Wilson played a significant role in galvanizing the nation at a time of world war, but he also expanded and militarized its government and saw himself as a bit of a president-king whose authority should be unfettered.
Wilson's aims of world peace through a League of Nations and America's leadership in fostering self-determination among those nations, naturally with some loss of sovereignty, all seem benevolent enough. But largely missing is any mention of the fascist means employed to accomplish those goals through ever expanding institutions and concentration of power among a handful of elitists. I am not convinced after reading this book that Wilson could do, and did, no wrong.
October 14, 2014
The first chapter or two of this book is a rather pitiful attempt to whitewash Wilson. Link writes that after the "disasters in foreign policy from Kennedy through Nixon", Wilson looks better. But Kennedy saved the world by avoiding war in the Cuban missile crisis and Nixon turned China from an enemy to a (sort of) ally- so Link's examples don't quite support his views.
Link also writes that Wilson "prevented the dismemberment of Russia" and "prevented the imposition of a truly Carthaginian peace on Germany." But given the harm caused by the Nazi and Soviet Empires, his assertions make me more persuaded than ever that Wilson was a disastrous foreign policy leader. So after the first 20 pages I was tempted to stop reading.
But I didn't and I am glad I didn't. His last chapter on the League of Nations is actually quite good; he summarizes the arguments of both President Wilson and his opponents (who, as he points out, were mostly not isolationists even if they did favor less American involvement in the League than Wilson).
Link also writes that Wilson "prevented the dismemberment of Russia" and "prevented the imposition of a truly Carthaginian peace on Germany." But given the harm caused by the Nazi and Soviet Empires, his assertions make me more persuaded than ever that Wilson was a disastrous foreign policy leader. So after the first 20 pages I was tempted to stop reading.
But I didn't and I am glad I didn't. His last chapter on the League of Nations is actually quite good; he summarizes the arguments of both President Wilson and his opponents (who, as he points out, were mostly not isolationists even if they did favor less American involvement in the League than Wilson).
July 31, 2014
I read this as it was required reading for next year's AP US History. I hope they are trying to get the kids to realize that biographies are only one man's opinion. The writer obviously believes that not only was Wilson the greatest president ever, he's the greatest human being ever. I was surprised that so many issues in politics that were problems in 1919 are still problems today.
December 10, 2011
Clearly written while the author sustained an erection for longer than four hours at the mere thought of Woodrow Wilson: The Greatest President Conceivable to the Mind of Man.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews