ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½

By the author of acclaimed biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams, a penetrating biography of one of the most high-minded, consequential, and controversial U.S. presidents, Woodrow ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ (1856-1924). The Moralist is a cautionary tale about the perils of moral vanity and American overreach in foreign affairs. In domestic affairs, ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ was a progressive who enjoyed unprecedented success in leveling the economic playing field, but he was behind the times on racial equality and women’s suffrage. As a Southern boy during the Civil War, he knew the ravages of war, and as president he refused to lead the country into World War I until he was convinced that Germany posed a direct threat to the United States. Once committed, he was an admirable commander-in-chief, yet he also presided over the harshest suppression of political dissent in American history. After the war ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½ became the world’s most ardent champion of liberal internationalism—a democratic new world order committed to peace, collective security, and free trade. With ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½â€™s leadership, the governments at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 founded the League of Nations, a federation of the world’s democracies. The creation of the League, ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½â€™s last great triumph, was quickly followed by two crushing blows: a paralyzing stroke and the rejection of the treaty that would have allowed the United States to join the League. After a backlash against internationalism in the 1920s and 1930s, ÐÇ¿Õ´«Ã½â€™s liberal internationalism was revived by Franklin D. Roosevelt and it has shaped American foreign relations—for better and worse—ever since.