Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson: Progressivism, Internationalism, War, and Peace
A new book published by the Woodrow Wilson Center Press examines the life and legacy of America's 28th president.
WASHINGTON—Woodrow Wilson Center Press has published a new book, Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson: Progressivism, Internationalism, War, and Peace, edited by John Milton Cooper Jr. It is copublished with the Johns Hopkins University Press.
Some of today's premier experts on Woodrow Wilson contribute to this new collection of essays about the former statesman, portraying him as a complex, even paradoxical president. Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson reveals a person who was at once an international idealist, a structural reformer of the nation's economy, and a policy maker who was simultaneously accommodating, indifferent, resistant, and hostile to racial and gender reform.
Progressive domestic reforms were the chief goals of Wilson's early presidency, and the book's opening chapters consider his philosophy, goals, and major achievements in this realm. Other chapters analyze his mostly negative legacy toward racial equality and his late conversion to women's suffrage.
But when we think of Wilson we think of international affairs, and the later parts of the book focus on that area. Subjects include Wilson's early forays into international entanglements in Latin America, his ideas on rights in wartime, and the foundations of his peacemaking. Then a series of contributions show how his activities have shaped our world and our thinking about it ever since.
These essays were originally written for a celebration of Wilson's 150th birthday sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson House. That daylong symposium examined some of the most important and controversial areas of Wilson's political life and presidency.
John Milton Cooper Jr. is the E. Gordon Fox Professor of American Institutions in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson: Progressivism, Internationalism, War, and Peace is distributed by the Johns Hopkins University Press, www.press.jhu.edu or telephone 1-800-537-5487. The list price is $60.00 for hardcover.
