Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent, Disturbing History
Review: Thomas Fleming has written an excellent disturbing history of American's experience in the First World War--and an equally excellent, disturbing biography of the president who "kept us out of war," and then brought us into that war, Woodrow Wilson.
Wilson is generally rated as among our best presidents. He was, as Fleming reveals, a disaster--as a war leader, as a politician, as a diplomat, even as a person. Should be required reading in any class on the time period.
Rating: 
Summary: Woodrow Wilson's Failure as Wartime President
Review: Thomas Fleming's study of how and why America got into World War I is indeed a polemic, and a scathing portrait of President Woodrow Wilson, both as political leader and as chief negotiator for the United States at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. While Fleming purports to relate a history of the times (and does a decent, if somewhat abbreviated job of it), he uses that history to paint a portrait of Wilson as a seriously flawed man who was totally unsuited for the presidency. Wilson was at heart an autocrat and a demagogue, and his ambition, arrogance, and complete inability to compromise did his, and America's, undoing. Fleming's book is not a balanced narrative by any means. He has a breezy, informal style that makes for easy reading. Fleming is sarcastic, and his obvious disdain for Wilson can be annoying; but knowing how things turned out, one can readily concur with Fleming's ultimate judgment on Wilson.
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