乐鱼 体育

By the author of acclaimed biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams, a penetrating biography of one of the most high-minded, consequential, and controversial U.S. presidents, Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924). The Moralist is a cautionary tale about the perils of moral vanity and American overreach in foreign affairs. In domestic affairs, Wilson was a progressive who enjoyed unprecedented success in leveling the economic playing field, but he was behind the times on racial equality and women鈥檚 suffrage. As a Southern boy during the Civil War, he knew the ravages of war, and as president he refused to lead the country into World War I until he was convinced that Germany posed a direct threat to the United States. Once committed, he was an admirable commander-in-chief, yet he also presided over the harshest suppression of political dissent in American history. After the war Wilson became the world鈥檚 most ardent champion of liberal internationalism鈥攁 democratic new world order committed to peace, collective security, and free trade. With Wilson鈥檚 leadership, the governments at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 founded the League of Nations, a federation of the world鈥檚 democracies. The creation of the League, Wilson鈥檚 last great triumph, was quickly followed by two crushing blows: a paralyzing stroke and the rejection of the treaty that would have allowed the United States to join the League. After a backlash against internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s, Wilson鈥檚 liberal internationalism was revived by Franklin D. Roosevelt and it has shaped American foreign relations鈥攆or better and worse鈥攅ver since.