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The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made Audiobook
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From the author of acclaimed biographies of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams comes a penetrating biography of one of the most high-minded, consequential, and controversial US presidents: Woodrow Wilson. The Moralist is a cautionary tale about the perils of moral vanity and American overreach in foreign affairs.
In domestic affairs, Wilson 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 Wilson became the world’s most ardent champion of liberal internationalism—a democratic new world order committed to peace, collective security, and free trade. With Wilson’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, Wilson’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, Wilson’s liberal internationalism was revived by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and it has shaped American foreign relations—for better and worse—ever since.
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“Lucid and elegant…On Wilson’s tortured entrance into World War I, [O’Toole] is truly superb…As a study of Wilson’s relationship with Europe and the intrigues of his foreign policy administration, the book is exemplary.”
— New York Times
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“Grim and often gripping, The Moralist goes a long way in explaining the America we’re awakening to.”
— USA Today -
“O’Toole does full justice to Wilson’s complexities, but it is with the coming of the war that her narrative takes on something close to Shakespearean dimensions…Scrupulously balanced…elegantly crafted.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“Enlightening…O’Toole has done students of American history a great service.”
— National Review
Awards
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A New York Times Editor’s Choice
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About Patricia O’Toole
Patricia O’Toole is the author of several books, including The Five of Hearts: An Intimate Portrait of Henry Adams and His Friends, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. A former professor in the School of the Arts at Columbia University, she is a fellow of the Society of American Historians.
About Fred Sanders
Fred Sanders, an actor and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has received critics’ praise for his audio narrations that range from nonfiction, memoir, and fiction to mystery and suspense. He been seen on Broadway in The Buddy Holly Story, in national tours for Driving Miss Daisy and Big River, and on such television shows as Seinfeld, The West Wing, Will and Grace, Numb3rs,Titus, and Malcolm in the Middle. His films include Sea of Love, The Shadow, and the Oscar-nominated short Culture. He is a native New Yorker and Yale graduate.