WOODROW WILSON

by Hecksher

Overview

August Heckscher sheds light on the life and work of Woodrow Wilson in the first biography to evaluate Wilson’s papers and letters.

Woodrow Wilson—scholar, reformer, orator, warrior, and peacemaker—was a visionary whose successes place him among the great presidents, and whose failures leave questions that still haunt the late twentieth century. A vigorous, attractive leader in his time, he has come down to posterity as a grim figure, yet he brought a fresh spirit to American politics as he took our nation irrevocably into the arena of international leadership.

August Heckscher shares the first biography based on the full corpus of Wilson papers and letters, covering his public and private life as well as portraying the politicians, statesmen and world leaders among whom he moved. Following his political career from his days as a college professor through his term as governor of New Jersey to his presidency, Heckscher pens an objective yet surprisingly intimate portrayal of this U.S. president.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780020038719
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	05/03/1993
Edition description:	Collier Books ed.
Pages:	752
Sales rank:	418,151
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

August Heckscher II was an American public intellectual from Huntington, New York. He was the grandson of August Heckscher, a capitalist who emigrated to America from Germany in 1867. His work explored American liberalism of political leaders.

Editorial Reviews

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. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

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

Library Journal

Combining intimate biography with sweeping history, Heckscher traces Wilson's (1856-1924) extraordinary career and life: Princeton professor and president, New Jersey governor, US president, war leader, and crusader for the ill-fated (but prophetic) League of Nations. Based on the entire collection of Wilson's papers, much of the material available for the first time. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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