Customer Reviews (3)

Historical Doubts About This Book
"Thomas Woodrow Wilson" was co-authored by Dr. Sigmund Freud and Ambassador William Bullitt in the mid 1930's. There is considerable doubt as to whether Dr. Freud had much to do with writing the book. Bullitt had been a young ambitious envoy to Europe during WW I. His language skills and willingness to finance his own travels to locales most diplomats wouldn't go was to his advantage. He was the first American diplomat to meet Lenin in Moscow. His tendency to follow his own course and side with European views of Wilson's League of Nations led to his dismissal from the State Dept.

Dr. Freud spoke and wrote only in German. His controlling nature was well known. Apart from parlor chat about Woodrow Wilson, Freud had no deep interest in the topic. He never meet President Wilson and Bullitt met him only as a young man in White House meetings. Freud's introduction points to Wilson's religious views as a psychological hinderance in world affairs. But his analogy to Christian Science seems remarkably unlikely.

Bullitt had the book published in America in 1966, before his death. Much of the book seems to be rewitten from old notes. Bullitt had a motive to wrote such a harsh account, Freud did not.

grabs the passions on points that failed
I love this book. In part it shows how a poetic science can ignore the millions who thought of President Wilson as a great hero making the world safe for democracy when he merely demonstrated that power had shifted from those who exercised power to those who could build enough weapons of mass destruction to wipe out anybody who was not expecting the Americans to become the sole surviving global superpower. We live in a world in which conflict exists on a level that Wilson was not able to handle. The personal failings associated with his self-righteousness are likely to afflict any modern person who has been born with a brain, but so be it.

Awful Book
My criticisms of this book can be divided into three categories:

1) The psychological analysis, though occasionally peaking into moments of sheer briliance, is generally representative of the worst ends of Freud's psychological theories. For Example: When Wilson became deathly ill with worry during the Paris Peace Conference, was it because he was terrified at the magnitude of the task he faced? Because he was conscience-stricken at having deceived the nation before plunging us into war? Because he wanted to make a good impression on Lloyd George, Clemenceau, and the peoples of Europe? No; according to Freud, it's because he possessed a "feminine" character (read: weak and overly-emotional), and thus could not handle a situation which called for "masculine" virtues. Flawed logic like this is riddled throughout the book, and used to explain pivotal moments both in Wilson's personal life and in our nation's history. Subjects such as his adoration for his father, the Reverend Joseph Ruggles Wilson, his early academic difficulties, the brilliance that came behind the writing of "Congressional Government", his ongoing feud with Princeton sacred cow Andrew West, his progressivism both as Governor of New Jersey and President of the United States, his two marriages, his handling of our nation's foreign policy during the World War One era... all of these matters are explained using faulty Freudian logic that does not hold up to the light of scrutiny, and virtually all of their conclusions paint Wilson in the most disparaging light possible.

2) The writers of this book make no bones about their distinct anti-Wilson bias. In his very introduction, Freud discusses how much he loathed President Wilson, before trying to assure us that this would not impact his perspective; William Bullitt, though more coy about his actual feelings, was known to be a great admirer of Wilson up until 1919, when his disapproval of Wilson's decisions at the Paris conference caused him to famously give a red rose to all those who were willing to openly condemn their President, and a yellow rose of cowardice to anyone who dared agree with him. Since then, Bullitt became notorious as a particularly noxious anti-Wilson speaker, even succumbing to paranoid spells (such as believing that government agents were tape recording his conversations through the radiator). I am fully aware that there are those who argue that objectivity is impossible, and on most occasions I am inclined to agree with them; but an author should at least try to give his subject a fair break, especially when composing a work that is ostensibly supposed to serve as an academic analysis, rather than a bloated op-ed piece.

3) This may seem like a minor point, but it seriously irked me - Freud and Bullitt openly admitted that one of the main reasons behind their decision to wait so long before publishing their book is that they didn't want to upset any of Wilson's close friends or family members. Could I buy this? Yes... if they were releasing hard data pertaining to scandal in the life of Woodrow Wilson. However, the book makes countless negative assertions about Wilson that are not supported by any verifiable sources (they don't name names), and it is interesting to note how the only people who would have been qualified to dispute their claims from first-hand experience are the ones who had died just before the book was released. This, to me, is nothing short of contemptible cowardice; they are the equivalent of a bully who waits until their subject and his supporters have left the room, locks the door, and then proceeds to slander them. ... Read more

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“West's Encyclopedia of American Law” is 13 volumes and 5,000 entries of comprehensive information on the fascinating American Legal System and its components. Covering historical and current terms, concepts, events, movements, cases, and persons significant to U.S law, West’s has been written, updated, and reviewed by lawyers and professors with the everyday user in mind.Everyone from the layperson hooked on the weekly TV courtroom procedural to the serious student can find such valuable information as brief definitions of legal jargon, exhaustive examinations of courtroom procedure, explanations of complex topics such as civil rights, biographies of standout attorneys, analyses of controversial issues, and transcripts of crucial Supreme Court decisions.

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This digital document is an article from Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 802 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Designed to answer such key questions as: How has the U.S. Constitution shaped the economy of the United States? What were the consequences of Prohibition on consumers' behavior? This title presents era overviews, event/movement profiles, biographies, business/industry profiled, geographic profiles, and more. ... Read more

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This book desires to prove how "deeply disturbed" President Wilson was, "and how his inner conflicts altered the lives of all of us." And how he failed to "make the world safe for democracy."This is the vintage first edition of the book. The covers are Alice blue, and the jacket is off-white. For all historians or curious people. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

magic
I love this book. In part it shows how a poetic science can ignore the millions who thought of President Wilson as a great hero making the world safe for democracy when he merely demonstrated that power had shifted from those who exercised power to those who could build enough weapons of mass destruction to wipe out anybody who was not expecting the Americans to become the sole surviving global superpower. We live in a world in which conflict exists on a level that Wilson was not able to handle. The personal failings associated with his self-righteousness are likely to afflict any modern person who has been born with a brain, but so be it. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more