Ebook: Power without victory: Woodrow Wilson and the American internationalist experiment

For decades, Woodrow Wilson has been remembered as either a paternalistic liberal or reactionary conservative at home and as a naive idealist or cynical imperialist abroad. Historians' harsh judgments of Wilson are understandable. He won two elections by promising a deliberative democratic process that would ensure justice and political empowerment for all. Yet under Wilson, Jim Crow persisted, interventions in Latin America increased, and a humiliating peace settlement was forced upon Germany. A generation after Wilson, stark inequalities and injustices still plagued the nation, myopic nationalism hindered its responsible engagement in world affairs, and a second vastly destructive global conflict threatened the survival of democracy worldwide-leaving some Americans today to wonder what, exactly, the buildings and programs bearing his name are commemorating.