This book critiques President Woodrow Wilson's statecraft and diplomacy during World War I, notably with respect to religion and race.

How Woodrow Wilson's vision of making the world safe for democracy has been betrayed—and how America can fulfill it again The liberal internationalist tradition is credited with America's greatest triumphs as a world power—and also its biggest failures. Beginning in the 1940s, imbued with the spirit of Woodrow Wilson’s efforts at the League of Nations to "make the world safe for democracy," the United States steered a course in world affairs that would eventually win the Cold War. Yet in the 1990s, Wilsonianism turned imperialist, contributing directly to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the continued failures of American foreign policy. Why Wilson Matters explains how the liberal internationalist community can regain a sense of identity and purpose following the betrayal of Wilson’s vision by the brash “neo-Wilsonianism” being pursued today. Drawing on Wilson’s original writings and speeches, Tony Smith traces how his thinking about America’s role in the world evolved in the years leading up to and during his presidency, and how the Wilsonian tradition went on to influence American foreign policy in the decades that followed—for good and for ill. He traces the tradition’s evolution from its “classic” era with Wilson, to its “hegemonic” stage during the Cold War, to its “imperialist” phase today. Smith calls for an end to reckless forms of U.S. foreign intervention, and a return to the prudence and “eternal vigilance” of Wilson’s own time. Why Wilson Matters renews hope that the United States might again become effectively liberal by returning to the sense of realism that Wilson espoused, one where the promotion of democracy around the world is balanced by the understanding that such efforts are not likely to come quickly and without costs.

Some of today’s premier experts on Woodrow Wilson contribute to this new collection of essays about the former statesman, portraying him as a complex, even paradoxical president. Reconsidering Woodrow Wilson reveals a person who was at once an international idealist, a structural reformer of the nation’s economy, and a policy maker who was simultaneously accommodating, indifferent, resistant, and hostile to racial and gender reform. Wilson’s progressivism is discussed in chapters by biographer John Milton Cooper and historians Trygve Throntveit and W. Elliot Brownlee. Wilson’s philosophy about race and nation is taken up by Gary Gerstle, and his gender politics discussed by Victoria Bissel Brown. The seeds of Wilsonianism are considered in chapters by Mark T. Gilderhus on Wilson’s Latin American diplomacy and war; Geoffrey R. Stone on Wilson’s suppression of seditious speech; and Lloyd Ambrosius on entry into World War I. Emily S. Rosenberg and Frank Ninkovich explore the impact of Wilson’s internationalism on capitalism and diplomacy; Martin Walker sets out the echoes of Wilson’s themes in the cold war; and Anne-Marie Slaughter suggests how Wilson might view the promotion of liberal democracy today. These essays were originally written for a celebration of Wilson’s 150th birthday sponsored by the official national memorial to Wilson—the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars—in collaboration with the Woodrow Wilson House. That daylong symposium examined some of the most important and controversial areas of Wilson’s political life and presidency.

Was George W. Bush the true heir of Woodrow Wilson, the architect of liberal internationalism? Was the Iraq War a result of liberal ideas about America's right to promote democracy abroad? In this timely book, four distinguished scholars of American foreign policy discuss the relationship between the ideals of Woodrow Wilson and those of George W. Bush. The Crisis of American Foreign Policy exposes the challenges resulting from Bush's foreign policy and ponders America's place in the international arena. Led by John Ikenberry, one of today's foremost foreign policy thinkers, this provocative collection examines the traditions of liberal internationalism that have dominated American foreign policy since the end of World War II. Tony Smith argues that Bush and the neoconservatives followed Wilson in their commitment to promoting democracy abroad. Thomas Knock and Anne-Marie Slaughter disagree and contend that Wilson focused on the building of a collaborative and rule-centered world order, an idea the Bush administration actively resisted. The authors ask if the United States is still capable of leading a cooperative effort to handle the pressing issues of the new century, or if the country will have to go it alone, pursuing policies without regard to the interests of other governments. Addressing current events in the context of historical policies, this book considers America's position on the global stage and what future directions might be possible for the nation in the post-Bush era.

In Wilsonianism , American foreign relations specialist Lloyd E. Ambrosius has compiled his published and unpublished essays on Woodrow Wilson's liberal ideology and statecraft during and after World War I. Although the president failed in his pursuit of a new world order, his legacy of Wilsonianism - the principles of national self-determination, economic globalization, collective security, and progressive historicism - continued to shape U.S. foreign relations throughout the American Century. Ambrosius examines the American roots of Wilson's liberal internationalism, the dilemmas and contradictions in his principles, and the problematic consequences of U.S. efforts to implement Wilsonian ideals without fully appreciating the world's cultural pluralism as well as its economic and political interdependence. Offering a pluralist variant of the realist tradition in international relations, Ambrosius stresses the centrality of power; but maintains that culture and political economy as well as military strength determine the balance of power within and among nations or empires. Consequently, he concludes, making the world safe for democracy has been more problematic in practice, both at home and abroad, than proclaiming Wilsonian principles in the abstract.

A Foreign Affairs Best Book of the Year “Even in these dismal times genuinely important books do occasionally make their appearance...You really ought to read it...A tour de force...While Wertheim is not the first to expose isolationism as a carefully constructed myth, he does so with devastating effect.” —Andrew J. Bacevich, The Nation For most of its history, the United States avoided making political and military commitments that would entangle it in power politics. Then, suddenly, it conceived a new role for itself as an armed superpower—and never looked back. In Tomorrow, the World, Stephen Wertheim traces America’s transformation to World War II, right before the attack on Pearl Harbor. As late as 1940, the small coterie formulating U.S. foreign policy wanted British preeminence to continue. Axis conquests swept away their assumptions, leading them to conclude that America should extend its form of law and order across the globe, and back it at gunpoint. No one really favored “isolationism”—a term introduced by advocates of armed supremacy to burnish their cause. We live, Wertheim warns, in the world these men created. A sophisticated and impassioned account that questions the wisdom of U.S. supremacy, Tomorrow, the World reveals the intellectual path that brought us to today’s endless wars. “Its implications are invigorating...Wertheim opens space for Americans to reexamine their own history and ask themselves whether primacy has ever really met their interests.” —New Republic “For almost 80 years now, historians and diplomats have sought not only to describe America’s swift advance to global primacy but also to explain it...Any writer wanting to make a novel contribution either has to have evidence for a new interpretation, or at least be making an older argument in some improved and eye-catching way. Tomorrow, the World does both.” —Paul Kennedy, Wall Street Journal

In recent years, and in light of U.S. attempts to project power in the world, the presidency of Woodrow Wilson has been more commonly invoked than ever before. Yet "Wilsonianism" has often been distorted by a concentration on American involvement in the First World War. In Woodrow Wilson and the Great War: Reconsidering America's Neutrality, 1914-1917, prominent scholar Robert Tucker turns the focus to the years of neutrality. Arguing that our neglect of this prewar period has reduced the complexity of the historical Wilson to a caricature or stereotype, Tucker reveals the importance that the law of neutrality played in Wilson's foreign policy during the fateful years from 1914 to 1917, and in doing so he provides a more complete portrait of our nation's twenty-eighth president. By focusing on the years leading up to America's involvement in the Great War, Tucker reveals that Wilson's internationalism was always highly qualified, dependent from the start upon the advent of an international order that would forever remove the specter of another major war. World War I was the last conflict in which the law of neutrality played an important role in the calculations of belligerents and neutrals, and it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that this law--or rather Woodrow Wilson's version of it--constituted almost the whole of his foreign policy with regard to the war. Wilson's refusal to find any significance, moral or otherwise, in the conflict beyond the law and its violation led him to see the war as meaningless, save for the immense suffering and sense of utter futility it fostered. Treating issues of enduring interest, such as the advisability and effectiveness of U.S. interventions in, or initiation of, conflicts beyond its borders, Woodrow Wilson and the Great War will appeal to anyone interested in the president's power to determine foreign policy, and in constitutional history in general.