Woodrow Wilson

Follows the political career of Woodrow Wilson, from his days as a college professor, to his term as governor of New Jersey, to his presidency, in an objective yet suprisingly intimate portrayal of a U.S. president

This major biography of Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) tracks his family background, his education, his transition from academician to political leader. We're shown his election to the White House in 1912, his legislative reforms, his early foreign-policy challenges in Mexico and Haiti, his superb leadership once America entered WW I, his role at the Paris Peace Conference, his attempt to gain popular support during the quarrel over Senate ratification of the Versailles Treaty, and his pitiful decline in health during his final years in office. Heckscher dismisses the notion that Wilson's wife, Edith, virtually ran the country during the latter period. What sets this well-written biography apart is the author's close attention to Wilson's emotional life (effectively revealed in certain of his letters). Heckscher succeeds in humanizing this rather forbidding man, although Wilson the "Noble" remains very much on display throughout--a man who "fought bravely, but too stubbornly, for high ends." Heckscher is former president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation. Photos. BOMC and History Book Club alternates.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A long, appreciative biography of Wilson that details the warm private man as well as the towering public figure; from former journalist and N.Y.C. Parks Commissioner Heckscher (St. Paul's: The Life of a New England School, 1980; coauthor, When LaGuardia Was Mayor, 1978). Making full use of the Wilson papers, the author offers a solid if standard account of the president's life: the years as a popular political-science professor, president of Princeton Univ., New Jersey governor, and, of course, Chief Executive, when he championed innovative labor, tariff, and fiscal reforms and steered the nation through WW I. As might be expected of an erstwhile president of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Heckscher sometimes defends his hero a little too much (e.g., he ascribes Wilson's dismal civil-rights record to the need to maintain a congressional consensus behind his legislation rather than to ingrained southern prejudices). Although he constantly emphasizes Wilson's passionate nature (including his devotion to his two wives and an apparent short-lived extramarital affair), other historians have already punched holes in the stereotype of the president as an arid intellectual. Instead, this biography is at its best in communicating the nature of Wilson's unusual charisma--a ``coming together of worldly good fortune with a feeling of inner blessedness'' in this son and grandson of Presbyterian ministers. In Heckscher's view, Wilson's fighting faith (he once said that, as President, ``a man must put on his war paint'') made him at his zenith an irresistibly persuasive and eloquent reformer--but, when his political instincts and health failed him (for instance, during the ill-starred fight to save the League of Nations), it led to disaster. A familiar, but convincing and sympathetic, argument for Wilson's greatness as presidential innovator and world statesman. (B&w photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

With the 63-volume Papers of Woodrow Wilson , edited by Arthur Link (Princeton Univ. Pr., 1966-1990), now fully available, there is much recent work on various aspects of Wilson's life and career. The time is ripe for a good one-volume biography, accessible to both scholars and the general reader. Heckscher has ably met the challenge with this well-organized and serviceable work, blending political and personal history in a readable, generally sympathetic narrative. His account moves smoothly and judiciously through Wilson's rise from scholar to college president to governor to president and his precipitate decline in health and power. He is perhaps a bit heavy-handed about Wilson's health, seeing portents in every head cold. Overall, a fine job and recommended for all American history collections. BOMC alternate; History Book Club alternate; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/91.--Ed.
- Nancy C. Cridland, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.