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Wilson, by A. Scott Berg
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Longlisted for the 2014 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
“With the prescience that all truly great biographers possess, Berg discovered in Woodrow Wilson a figure who would understand Washington’s current state of affairs.”—Vanity Fair
“A brilliant biography that still resonates in Washington today.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin
From Pulitzer Prize–winning, #1 New York Times–bestselling author A. Scott Berg comes the definitive—and revelatory—biography of one of the great American figures of modern times.
One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg has completed Wilson--the most personal and penetrating biography ever written about the 28th President.
In addition to the hundreds of thousands of documents in the Wilson Archives, Berg was the first biographer to gain access to two recently-discovered caches of papers belonging to those close to Wilson. From this material, Berg was able to add countless details--even several unknown events--that fill in missing pieces of Wilson’s character and cast new light on his entire life.
From the scholar-President who ushered the country through its first great world war to the man of intense passion and turbulence , from the idealist determined to make the world “safe for democracy” to the stroke-crippled leader whose incapacity and the subterfuges around it were among the century’s greatest secrets, the result is an intimate portrait written with a particularly contemporary point of view – a book at once magisterial and deeply emotional about the whole of Wilson’s life, accomplishments, and failings. This is not just Wilson the icon – but Wilson the man.
- Sales Rank: #187276 in Books
- Published on: 2013-09-10
- Released on: 2013-09-10
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.50" h x 1.70" w x 6.50" l, 2.78 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 832 pages
From Booklist
*Starred Review* His name is customarily listed in the category of “great” when historians rank the U.S. presidents. Woodrow Wilson was, it will be recalled, chief executive during WWI. He kept the U.S. out of war in his first term, but in his second, he propelled the country into a conflict that had gone global. Berg, author of such highly acclaimed biographies as Max Perkins: Editor of Genius (1978) and Lindbergh (1998), renders Wilson with an astute, sensitive understanding of the man and his presidency. Berg’s research is deep and thorough and—important for a wide readership—comfortably couched in a graceful, smooth presentation. Wilson was unique among presidents in his rise through academe, his prepresidential résumé including a professorship at and then the presidency of Princeton. His only real political connection before entering the White House was a brief tenure as governor of New Jersey. In the highly dramatic presidential election of 1912, Wilson defeated the incumbent, President Taft, and a third-party candidate, past president Teddy Roosevelt. The Allied success in WWI prompted Wilson to travel to Europe for the peace conference; the first sitting president to leave the country, he was determined to see that a peace treaty would include a charter for a League of Nations. But the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty, the U.S. never joined the league, and Wilson’s heart and body were broken. With a year left in his second term, he suffered a stroke and spent the last months of his presidency in seclusion, with his wife, Edith, effectively running the executive office behind closed White House doors. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: A national author tour, radio interviews, and an extensive advertising campaign support the publication of one of the major biographies of the season. --Brad Hooper
Review
Praise for Wilson
“A brilliant biography that still resonates in Washington today.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin
“Telling the story of [Wilson’s] life, his visionary ideas and his legacy has occupied four generations of American historians. But until now, no one has gotten him quite right. Not until A. Scott Berg, with his landmark biography “Wilson.” In a meticulously researched and generously written new biography, we have an appraisal of the 28th president that is neither diminishing nor hagiographic. Rather, Berg, one of the pre-eminent biographers of our time, has placed Wilson in his correct place in our nation’s history. In many ways, he accomplishes for Wilson what David McCullough’s biographies of Harry Truman and John Adams did for their subjects: It secures Wilson’s place among the top tier of American presidents.”—Louisville Courier-Journal
“A. Scott Berg’s new 800-page biography, Wilson (**** out of four), spares no detail. It takes a certain quixotic passion to give us Wilson…with such thorough fact-sifting that we emerge, stunned…Wilson is [Berg’s] most ambitious if least sexy undertaking, scripturally dense, a codex that richly explains Wilson’s policy revolution while establishing the man’s full humanity, his flaws and failings…Berg mines the record in all its complexity and tragedy.” –USA Today, 4 star review
“Magesterial . . . at once intimate, sweeping and authoritative.”--Los Angeles Times
“Breathtaking…Berg gives Wilson a fresh look, restoring him to the place he occupied – the idealist in politics – before recent biographers wrote him off…Now, thanks to Berg, we know a more fully rounded Wilson.” –Boston Globe
“Mr. Berg is a terrific researcher, and ‘Wilson’ exhumes hundreds of fresh quotes and details...A very good work of history.” –Wall Street Journal
“Berg tells the story of Wilson, the man, very well indeed…he has a novelist’s eye for the striking detail, and a vivid prose style.” –New York Times Book Review
“A splendid look at [Wilson’s] life and legacy…In this majestic biography, [Berg] succeeds in capturing Wilson the man as well as Wilson the politician…With the sweep of his narrative, the wealth of his detail, the clarity of his prose and the breadth of his vision, Berg has produced an insightful and intimate work that is likely to stand as the definitive biography of one of the nation’s most consequential leaders.” –Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Wilson remains unique among American presidents and A. Scott Berg has written a superb biography of him. It provides an account of Wilson's life and presidency rich in detail and moving in its finer moments of narrative.”—The Australian
“For readers coming to Wilson for the first time, Mr. Berg’s biography tells the story of this singular man thoroughly.” –Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Berg is a masterful biographer…[Wilson is] absorbing.” –Miami Herald
“Marvelously detailed.” –Washingtonian
“A work of spectacular artistry and objective workmanship…should be required reading for any course of study that examines American history after 1865…Berg’s illumination of the president’s humanity is riveting…[A] treasure” –Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
“By far the best single study of Wilson’s life and times…Berg’s study should remain the standard biography of this tragic figure for a long time.” –Philadelphia Inquirer
“Succeeds magnificently in elucidating Woodrow Wilson the man. Quietly, methodically, intuitively, the author examines almost every aspect of his subject’s life, from the religious to the sexual and almost everything in between. His account…is nuanced and revealing.” – The Washington News
“The same penetrating illumination, meaningful insight and readable prose that Berg brought to his biography of Charles Lindbergh is on display throughout Wilson, and readers can walk away with a profound and unique perspective on the man, offered by one of our most gifted biographers.” – Deseret News
“No previous biographer has told [Wilson’s] story so well…Unlike his scholarly predecessors, [Berg] actually convinces you to like the man…[An] always graceful portrait.”– The Daily Beast
“With the prescience that all truly great biographers possess, Berg discovered in Woodrow Wilson a figure who would understand Washington’s current state of affairs.” – Vanity Fair
“[Berg] renders Wilson with an astute, sensitive understanding of the man and his presidency. Berg’s research is deep and thorough.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Accomplished biographer Berg emphasizes the extraordinary talents of this unlikely president in an impressive, nearly hagiographic account . . . Readable, authoritative and, most usefully, inspiring.”—Kirkus Reviews
“A thorough, entertaining account of our 28th president . . . [an] excellent biography.”—Library Journal (starred review)
Rraise for A. Scott Berg’s Lindbergh
“Berg’s book is an extraordinary achievement. In his authoritative chronicle, Berg has allowed the inconsistencies, nuances, and tribulations of Lindbergh’s life to speak for themselves without judgment or speculation. In doing so, he has given us the definitive account of a dramatic and disturbing American story.”--Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Charles Lindbergh is the ultimate American life, and Berg’s new biography is the ultimate exploration of that life. In an astonishing biography of a man who personified the future tense, no sentence is overwritten, no passage overwrought.”--Boston Sunday Globe
“Berg’s monumental new biography is a richly detailed and deeply nuanced examination of a historic life in all its complexity. This is fall’s must-read biography.”--Seattle Post-Intelligencer
“Berg turns that historic flight into a cogent and thoroughly gripping account that conveys all the magic, danger and courage of the young pilot’s achievement. A similar narrative prowess informs Berg’s account of the 1932 kidnapping of Lindbergh’s infant son and the subsequent trial of Hauptmann – an account that reads, at once, as a harrowing thriller and a sobering study in the unreckoned consequences of fame.”--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“A superb biography.”--Time Magazine
“The most outstanding piece of nonfiction that I have read this year. Berg does a spectacular job of establishing why Lindbergh proves such a powerful icon for the 20th century. A substantial piece of history that illuminates an important figure in world history. It’s the kind of book that took almost a decade to create. And it’s worth it.”--USA Today
“Berg brings us about as close as I suspect we will ever get to the man himself.”--The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
A. Scott Berg is the author of four bestselling biographies: Max Perkins: Editor of Genius, winner of the National Book Award; Goldwyn; Lindbergh, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; and Kate Remembered. He lives in Los Angeles.
Most helpful customer reviews
378 of 425 people found the following review helpful.
A biographer who seems afraid to get his hands dirty --- 2.5 stars
By Chefdevergue
It is obvious from the opening paragraph that Scott Berg holds Woodrow Wilson in high esteem. However, it also becomes apparent that he is quite uncomfortable with the more unsavory aspects of his subject. Another reviewer observed that Berg makes a very conscious decision to avoid making editorial commentary whenever possible, and contrasts this with Jean Edward Smith's willingness to give his biographical subjects a good working over (his recent Eisenhower biography being a very good example). By avoiding (for the most part) any actual analysis of Wilson and his policies, Berg is able to allow the narrative, enhanced by the details he selectively puts forward, to guide the reader to his desired conclusion.
In all fairness, I am not a fan of Wilson, and so am not predisposed to respond well to a favorable biography in any case. But my problem with Berg is that he doesn't even allow a true debate about Wilson to enter the arena. There are certain aspects of Wilson's personality, particularly his opinions on race relations, which are so unavoidable that even Berg must address them, but still it feels as though he is continually pulling his punches and putting the best spin on what is a considerably unappetizing legacy. The "everyone was a racist" and "others were even worse than Wilson" comments (my paraphrasing) become extraordinarily tiresome after a certain point. It is almost as though Berg would like the whole race issue simply to go away, so that he doesn't have to write about it.
And there are plenty of things which Berg doesn't write about, because he can get away with it. If it puts Wilson in a bad light, but doesn't actually require much discussion in the narrative, Berg will hustle the reader past it with as little commentary as possible, and with as passive a voice as can be mustered. I would cite, as an example, Wilson's nomination of James McReynolds to the US Supreme Court, described by Berg as being "reflexively appointed" by Wilson, as if the President was unaware of McReynolds' true nature (which is then "quickly revealed" to be rather awful). Seriously? Anyone who has studied the Supreme Court at all knows that Wilson, having discovered that his recently-appointed Attorney General was obnoxious and an embarrassment to the administration, kicked him upstairs to be rid of him. The only problem was that McReynolds remained a blight on the Court for the next 27 years. It doesn't say much good about Wilson's approach to court appointments, but Berg gives it a whopping half a paragraph's worth of discussion. Compare this to the nomination of Louis Brandeis, which because it stands as one of Wilson's finest legacies, receives about ten times the amount of text.
Another excellent example would be Wilson's foreign policy in regards to Latin America. Wilson attempted to set himself apart from the interventionist policies of his predecessors, at least in word, and Berg does his gosh-darndest to make it appear so. Unfortunately, in so doing, he ignores Wilson's record as one of the most interventionist of 20th century U.S. presidents, with military operations in Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. Berg addresses Wilson's adventures in Mexico only because (again) there is no way to avoid the subject, but otherwise, Berg frames Latin America in such a way as to make it appear that Wilson woke up one day to discover that (gasp) the United States had troops occupying nations all across Latin America. Interestingly, he almost totally ignores Wilson's proposed (and failed) 1913 Pan-American Pact, which was in many ways a sneak preview of what was to come in his participation in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference and the resulting Treaty of Versailles.
Once the First World War breaks out, the book becomes almost impossibly frustrating, as Berg refuses to deviate from his "just tell the story" approach to biographical writing. If he isn't going to provide analysis about Wilson's foreign policy (for example: if Wilson had put more pressure on Britain and France in 1915 & 1916 in regards to violations of international law regarding neutral nations, could he have succeeded in forcing them to negotiate a peace in 1917? Was WJ Bryan right when he insisted that ALL belligerents needed to be dealt with equally?), then really, what is the point of writing about it at all? It's all politics at this point in the game, and it must be dealt with accordingly. Berg simply avoids doing that, and as a result, the chapters dealing with the war years become the hollow center of the book.
Even Berg cannot hope to put a positive spin on the disaster that is the Paris Peace Conference, The Treaty of Versailles, and all that follows. However, his treatment of the stroke-crippled Wilson (for me at least) rescues this book from being a total disappointment. Berg is at his best when dealing with Wilson the human being rather than Wilson the public figure. Despite my general dislike for Wilson, I cannot help but feel sympathy for the man as Berg takes the reader through Wilson's tragic final years.
From a technical standpoint, this is a very well-written, quite readable book. The narrative flows easily and keeps the 700-plus pages from being a chore. Echoing other reviewers, I find the biblically-themed chapter titles to be tiresome and distracting, but these are nothing compared to the truly appalling endnotes, which are organized in such a bizarre fashion as to make them utterly impenetrable. I cannot imagine what possessed Berg and his editor to think that this was a good idea on any level. I was tempted to take off another star in my rating, just because of endnotes.
Perhaps it is my fault for having high expectations for this book. I wasn't hoping for a hatchet job by any means, but this is such a timid, and at times superficial, treatment of a very polarizing individual that I fail to see how anyone could find this book to be the least bit satisfying.
127 of 142 people found the following review helpful.
The Tragedy of Woodrow Wilson
By Brendan Moody
A. Scott Berg has written a biography of the 28th President of the United States that Woodrow Wilson himself might have approved of. What you think that says about its quality will depend on your ideas about biography, and about Wilson himself. I wasn't a fan to begin with, and am much less of one having finished the book. But my problem with Berg's work is not that he clearly thinks a great deal of his subject; most biographers do. The trouble is that, despite his breathless admiration for Wilson's intellect, Berg has no evident interest in doing any thinking of his own. Uninterested in whether Wilson's individual decisions were sensible or coherent with his ideals, he's happy to present Wilson as the man presented himself: driven solely by a rational, intellectual sense of the greatest good for the greatest number of people. The result is an eminently readable biography, with a solid sense of pace and a fine balance among historical background, quotation, and narrative detail, that has nothing meaningful to say about its subject. Its flow as a story and its sense of the tragic arc of Wilson's personal life mean that it's not entirely without value. Readers unfamiliar with Wilson's life and looking for a hefty but accessible overview should pick it up. But if you think of biography as something more than artful arrangement of facts, WILSON is sorely lacking.
One gets the sense that Berg wants readers to draw parallels between Wilson's time and the present day-- for example, between Wilson, perceived as an intellectual, beloved by liberals for his rhetorical gifts, loathed as a socialist by obstructive conservatives, and Barack Obama, perceived, beloved, and loathed on the same terms. But Berg disrupts his own presentation here. He does very little to demonstrate Wilson's intellectual heft, preferring to quote broad statements of principle rather than thoughtful, nuanced arguments. And Wilson's religiosity, which is mentioned sparingly in the text but reinforced by overwrought biblical chapters titles and epigraphs, brings to mind parallels to another recent president who launched foreign wars. So (adhering for the moment to the popular image of the recent presidents) which was Wilson really: a rigorous intellectual like Barack Obama or a crusading moralist like George W. Bush?
Beats me. A great biography would have helped resolve the issue, but Berg misses or ignores key points at which Wilson's thoughts and his moral instincts are possibly in conflict. Wilson proudly disclaimed political patronage and cronyism-- then gave in to it after getting elected. On social issues like race relations and (until 1918) women's suffrage, he claimed to prefer gradual state-by-state change, but his economic programs were sweeping and federal. Did he ever justify the difference? Berg quotes a suffragette who confronted Wilson on this point. The president's response was a prickly "I do not care to discuss that." Nor, apparently, does Berg. Then there's the matter of World War I. Berg goes to great lengths to emphasize Wilson's reluctance to enter the war, his understanding of its horrors, his efforts to pursue peaceful neutrality. Then, as the US enters the war, he quotes Wilson's rhetoric about a grand struggle for the fate of the very world from which the country could not afford to absent itself. Berg makes no effort to explain this comparatively abrupt move from ambivalence to ardor; one is left to imagine that one day Wilson smacked his forehead and said, "Duh-- there's a moral element!" Nor does he explore how Wilson's wheeling and dealing at Versailles, or his interventions in Latin America, fit into his devotion to self-determination. Indeed, he barely discusses Latin America at all; at one point I was startled to discover that the US had invaded Haiti. Perhaps I missed a glancing mention of that elsewhere, but it's obvious that Berg generally doesn't know what to do with gaps between Wilson's rhetoric and his policies.
It's not that I demand a cynical interpretation of Wilson; it's that I demand an interpretation, rather than a lot of quotes that raise as many questions as they answer. Had Berg integrated Wilson's contradictions into a coherent theory of his ideology or personality, this would be a better book, even if I wasn't personally convinced by the theory. Berg isn't afraid to be negative about Wilson under certain circumstances. He particularly bats the administration around over the Espionage and Sedition Acts, as well he might. But then those laws, like Wilson's inflexible hostility to a former friend who turned against him over the former's plan to reform Princeton, demonstrate the one flaw allowed in Berg's conception of Woodrow Wilson: vindictive, self-aggrandizing behavior brought on by excess of noble passion. Wilson more or less admitted to that himself, and I don't think a good biography lets a subject dictate the presentation of his personality. Berg ought to have addressed, if only to refute, the possibility that self-pity, self-delusion, and hypocrisy played a greater role in Wilson's life than the man could ever have admitted, that his ideas are inextricably wound up with his psychological idiosyncrasies. This has as much to do with national history as with individual biography; when it comes to politics, personal quirks can have devastating effects. Berg presents the conflict over Senate ratification of the Versailles treaty as a battle between Wilson's stubborn support and Henry Cabot Lodge's politicized opposition. This is compelling as human drama, but what about the treaty itself? Were Wilson's basic ideas tenable? These are not insignificant issues, and Berg never acknowledges them.
Other problems of superficial presentation further weaken WILSON. Berg offers a fair amount of historical background, but much of it is overly general: I still have no real sense how trusts operated or how Wilson reformed their operation. And the end notes are formatted in a way that saves space but makes them useless for actually locating the sources of individual claims. But the largest flaw of a book that ends with a declaration of Wilson's enormous influence on the stormy present must be its disinclination to consider what that present tells us about him. Wilson believed (or said he believed) he was fighting a war to end war, creating an international organization that would ensure widespread peace. But the idea he unleashed, that the United States should participate and participate zealously in wars in which its stake is moral rather than actual, has drawn the country into what seems instead an endless cycle of conflict. Berg paints a poignant picture of the end of Wilson's life, as both his health and his hope that the United States would join the League of Nations were destroyed. It's a very sad story of crushed ambitions and small pleasures, moving even to someone with limited sympathy for the man. But surely Wilson, demoralized as he was by his final years, would be yet more horrified to see what the world looks like a century after his first inauguration. Horrified-- by a world of his own making. That is the true tragedy of Woodrow Wilson, the gap between what he dreamed and what he made, and the failure to examine how it came about means that despite taking up 750 pages, this biography doesn't even scratch the surface.
109 of 130 people found the following review helpful.
A highly readable account of Wilson's life and career
By MarkK
Few presidents have experienced a tenure as momentous as that of Woodrow Wilson. Taking office as the chief executive of a prosperous but somnolent nation, Wilson championed measures that transformed the national economy and the role of the federal government within it, then dealt with international conflicts from which the United States emerged as a world power. In his biography of Wilson, A. Scott Berg seeks understand the man behind such events, giving his readers a sense of who Wilson was and how he shaped the events of such a pivotal point in American history.
Few writers today can match Berg's abilities as a biographer, as readers of his previous works on Samuel Goldwyn, Charles Lindbergh, and Katherine Hepburn can attest. This book demonstrates his skills to full effect; the narrative is lucid, perceptive, and engages the reader. Most of it is focused on his two terms as president, with his long pre-presidential years as an academic and governor occupying only a little more than a third of the book. Yet while Berg provides a good narrative of Wilson's life and career, his examination of the broader historical context is lacking. Here the book suffers by comparison with John Milton Cooper's Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, which offered an insightful analysis of Wilson's life within the context of the larger movements and events of his times. As a result, while people seeking a readable account of Wilson's life will find much to enjoy in Berg's book, anyone seeking a deeper understanding of his significance to American and world history would be better served by turning to Cooper's biography instead.
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