A Companion to Woodrow Wilson

摘要

With this book Wiley-Blackwell add a notable figure to their growing library of presidential studies. Around a dozen have appeared so far. The historians tell us that Woodrow Wilson figures fourth in the list of five "great" presidents, so he should be worth the six hundred pages allotted to him. I am never sure what "great" means in this context. Beyond mere competence, I suppose it includes factors like tenacity, vision, political mastery, a large sense of purpose and, of course, guts. The Versailles Conference showed Wilson's vision and purpose at their best: the Fourteen Points and the League of Nations were certainly ambitious but they were quite alien to Lloyd George and Clemenceau.