President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson (2002) This 2-video The American Experience biography captures the complexities of one of America’s more unique presidential personalities. Shaped by his southern, Civil War origins and convinced that he had an inside track to god, Wilson sought to be the autocrat professor, whether at Princeton University or the White House. His stunning accomplishments were marred by his repeated inability/refusal to compromise on matters of “principle.” The video explores whether a serious stroke in the early 1900s may have contributed to President Wilson’s at-times-odd behavior. Listen to Professor James Shenton’s lecture 47 in the The Teaching Company’s The History of the United States: Part 5—The Making of Modern Americafor keen insights into Wilson’s personality.
Woodrow Wilson: Reluctant Warrior(1996) The quality of A&E biographies varies widely. On a modest budget, the A&E biography Moshe Dyan: A Warrior’s Story (1996) was an excellent and balanced characterization of a complex individual. By contrast, the A&E Wilson biography tends to present a single-dimensional image of a man who could by magnificent, impossible, Jehovah’s prophet, inflexible, amusing, bigoted, far sighted, and effective in political showdowns. I would not recommend this as an adequate substitute for the massively-funded, four-hour American Experience Woodrow Wilson.. To understand the Wilson personality, I recommend Professor James Shenton's Teaching Company "The New Freedom Lecture” (#48 in The History of the United States). To appreciate the hollowness of Wilson's WWI "neutrality," see Ron Chernow's account (in The House of Morgan) of how Morgan, with U.S. acquiescence, financed billions of dollars of Allied armaments and supplies during our "neutrality" period.
I believe that the two most perspective essays on Wilson remain Woodrow Wilson: The Conservative as Liberal in Richard Hofstadter’s The American Political Tradition& the Men Who Made It (1948) and Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) in Samuel and Dorothy Rosenman’s Presidential Style (1976).
