Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism [Hardcover]

The 'Era of Big Government'and the idea that the national government ought to be adequate to any task the people ask of itdid not creep up on America unaware. It was a deliberate project, grounded in a critique of the original Constitution, bolstered by a new political science, and guided by a thorough-going confidence in historical progress. With clarity, conviction, and plenty of evidence, R. J. Pestritto shows that, from his early days as a political scientist through his election to the presidency, Woodrow Wilson was consistently a central figure in the development of Progressivism and so of the Liberalism that dominated twentieth-century American public policy and political life. Though Wilson was no philosopher-king, Pestritto explains that our doctor-of-philosophy-president changed how we think about democracy and about America, in ways that ought to be reappraised but have yet to be undone.Ronald Pestrittos book is the deepest and most comprehensive treatment to date of Woodrow Wilsons political thought. Pestritto has produced a masterful study of the origins of Wilsons theoretical views, and he has carefully shown the connections between those views and Wilsons positions on major constitutional and institutional questions. All interested in American political thought will appreciate this important work.In his brilliant new book, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism, Ronald Pestritto painstakingly documents Wilson's debt to Hegel.Pestritto offers an interesting read, with Wilson as a parallel to contemporary end of history commentary. Recommended.In a work that cuts against much of the existing scholarship on Wilson, Pestritto shows that Wilson held coherent and consistent political principles throughout his life, and that these principles put Wilson at the heart of the Progressive movement. Pestritto's case relies on an impressive and meticulous study of Wilson's own wordsspeeches and writings taken from every stage of Wilson's lifewhicls5