Woodrow Wilson

A Biography

By: John Milton Cooper

Narrated by: John McDonough

John Milton Cooper, Jr., is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s preeminent Woodrow Wilson biographers. This thoroughly researched profile of America’s 28th president is universally hailed for its scholarship and insight into the life and career ofone of the nation’s most polarizing leaders.

©2009 John Milton Cooper, Jr. (P)2010 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"A rich and thoughtful portrait of a transformative, controversial and resonant president.” (Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author)

“Cooper’s monumental new biography seeks to revive Wilson for the 21st century—not simply to narrate a presidential life, but to explain why he deserves our national esteem….An admiring and engaging work of presidential revisionism…. A powerful, deeply researched and highly readable case for keeping Wilson in the top ranks of American presidents.” ( New York Times Book Review)

The Insufferable Busybody

Wilson was president during WWI in which he and Congress enacted the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act. Imprisoning many Americans for what they said, not for what they did. I wondered why the author didn’t have much to say about this abuse of power. The author also gave little to no discussion of the the 1918 flu pandemic that killed more than 50 million people worldwide. I think that these are not omissions by the author but the result of capturing Wilson’s MO that crises are opportunities to impose his “God given superior” intellect on the world. The man was an insufferable busybody of the worst kind. I don’t really know who was worse, TR or Wilson.

The Headmaster in troubled times

I have been reading books about WW1 and as Wilson was President of the U.S. during the WW1 he is on my list. This is an interesting will research and written book on Wilson, I learned a lot of from it. Cooper provided an unbiased look at Wilson showing us his good and bad traits. Wilson's greatest accomplishment was the appointment of Brandise to the Supreme Court, the first Jew so appointed. At the time this was very controversial and Wilson showed great political ability guiding the appointment to completion. He did back women suffrage but only with pushing from his daughters. He was born in the south and his record on race relations was poor. I enjoyed the realm of personal information provided on Wilson, he left lots of letters. Too bad the art of letter writing is passing away, they wrote so elegantly in the 1900's. There is so much infromation packed into this book I can not begin to hightlight but a small portion. If you are interested in history or in U.S. President this book is well worth the credits.

Good but long!

I appreciate the attention to detail and nuance, but found myself wanting to be done.

great book

great book on the president who got this country through ww1 and had it not been for his stroke and failure to get the league of nations going might have gone on to a 3rd term

Great book lots of interesting stories

I really enjoyed this book. My only reservation about it is that the timeline jumps around. You have to really pay attention to dates or it can get confusing.