One hundred years ago President Woodrow Wilson was doing everything in his power to keep the United States out of the First World War. Wilson had experienced a miraculous ascent from virtual obscurity to claim the highest office in the land. His remarkable story has been meticulously researched and described by A. Scott Berg in his masterful biography "Wilson."
Woodrow Wilson was a southerner and an academic. He had risen to national prominence as the President of Princeton University. Then he ran for governor of New Jersey and he won. Just a couple of years later Wilson became our president. He could not keep America out of that war. And when the war ended his health problems prevented him from becoming the peacemaker he had hoped to be. In fact during Wilson's final days in the White House he was so physically incapacitated that he wasn't really capable of governing. This fact was well concealed from the public at the time.
A. Scott Berg has written a superb biography of a man who possessed great gifts as well as troubling flaws. And as you listen to this interview you'll discover that he's also a really wonderful person to interview.
