by A. Scott Berg (2013)
Pulitzer Prize winner A. Scott Berg presents a thorough, entertaining account of our 28th president. Wilson, a lawyer who became an academic—a professor of history, political science, and law—then president of Princeton University, was elected New Jersey's governor in 1910. Two years later he won the U.S. presidency in a landslide. Berg's detailed account of Wilson's presidency shows how Washington has changed over the past century. In Wilson's White House, the West Wing was staffed with six people. The president (until a late second-term stroke) walked the streets of Washington, DC, to and from appointments and visits. After ten years of research, Berg is unable to disguise his admiration for his subject; he tends to downplay Wilson's flaws, such as his obvious racism. But Berg shows us that in many ways Wilson was a trailblazer. He reformed Princeton's curriculum to what is now the standard for undergraduate education. As U.S. president, he took his isolationist nation on the path to world power, advocated for women's suffrage, instituted the income tax, and pushed for the direct election of U.S. senators. (Robert B. Slater - Library Journal).
