Wilson

One hundred years after his inauguration, Woodrow Wilson still stands as one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, and one of the most enigmatic. And now, after more than a decade of research and writing, the author has completed a personal and penetrating biography about the 28th President. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of documents in the Wilson Archives, the author was able to gain access to two recently discovered caches of papers belonging to those close to Wilson. From this material, he was able to add countless details, even several unknown events, that fill in missing pieces of Wilson's character and cast new light on his entire life. From the scholar-President who ushered the country through its first great world war to the man of intense passion and turbulence, from the idealist determined to make the world safe for democracy to the stroke-crippled leader whose incapacity and the subterfuges around it were among the century's greatest secrets, the result is an intimate portrait written with a particularly contemporary point of view. A book at once magisterial and deeply emotional about the whole of Wilson's life, accomplishments, and failings. This is not just Wilson the icon but Wilson the man. -- From publisher's web site.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.