Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House. A Personality Study. [With Portraits.].

Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House. A Personality Study. [With Portraits.]. PDF Author: Alexander Lawrence GEORGE (and GEORGE (Juliette L.))
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House. A Personality Study. [With Portraits.].

Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House. A Personality Study. [With Portraits.]. PDF Author: Alexander Lawrence GEORGE (and GEORGE (Juliette L.))
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description


Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study

Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study PDF Author: Alexander L. George
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Woodrow Wilson’s presidential campaign in 1912 marked the beginning of a remarkable personal and political collaboration between Wilson and Colonel Edward M. House. The book traces the complexities of Wilson’s life and career along with his relationship with House, who for almost a decade was his closest behind-the-scenes advisor and confidant. Through the early years of Wilson’s boyhood, his rise to prominence in the academic world, to the presidency of Princeton University and the governorship of New Jersey, the authors analyze the forces and events that shaped Wilson’s character and his actions in the political arena: Wilson’s first administration, his struggles with Congress, American participation in World War I, the Paris Peace Conference, the formation of the League of Nations, the battle with the Senate over the Versailles Peace Treaty, Wilson’s appeal to the nation, and the eventual collapse of his health and his great dream. “Probably tomorrow’s biographies will continue the present tendency toward raiding the social sciences for new research techniques... The fascinating dual biography of Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House by Alexander and Juliette George shows what can and will be done in this field.” John Garraty, The New York Times “The first completely satisfactory account of this strange relationship... excellent and beautifully written.” — Bernard Brodie, World Politics “Fascinating as a study in human relations, important because of the destiny the two men held in their hands.” — Saturday Review “It has never before been told so well... Highly recommended.” — Newsday “Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House: A Personality Study may be counted among the classics in political psychology... it helped to establish a new methodological standard for psychobiography, signaling a significant step in the discipline’s maturation. Additionally, the Georges’ account has become a resource for a number of scholars, particularly political scientists, interested in a psychological perspective on Wilson or on the presidency itself... Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House has remained over the years a vital part of a number of continuing, substantive scholarly debates on Wilson and on the psychobiographical endeavor generally.” — William Friedman, Political Psychology “[A]n interesting and suggestive biography... two historians have nicely drawn upon psychoanalytic principles without in any way doing an injustice to their own responsibilities” — Robert Coles, The New York Review of Books “It is one of the best attributes of this well-written and interesting volume that the authors have managed to set down, as no one has done so well before, the way in which Colonel House coolly took the measure of Wilson’s personality and undertook to ingratiate himself... [T]he authors are thoroughly aware of the vagaries of human nature. The impression throughout the book is one of careful analysis and insight... There is a refreshing unwillingness, on the part of the authors, to bury their narrative in detail, and hence the high points of Wilson’s career come out clearly, and the judgments are likewise sharp and pointed... All in all, a first-rate volume of history.” — Robert H. Ferrell, The Review of Politics “The authors have done their research thoroughly, have presented their arguments convincingly, and have drawn logical conclusions... [They] are to be congratulated upon a job well done.” — George C. Osborn, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science “The study is well documented and carefully written. It should have enduring value.” — Rupert N. Richardson, The Southwestern Historical Quarterly “The authors have made a valuable contribution to the literature on Woodrow Wilson and opened new possibilities in historical study.” — J. Chal Vinson, The Georgia Historical Quarterly “A commendable little book which should take high place among the one-volume biographies of Woodrow Wilson. It is a well-balanced, smartly-paced work, maturely organized and presented in an engaging... manner. For the general reader interested in good biography well told, the book should have a special and richly deserved appeal.” — Charles Jellison, The American Historical Review

Presidential Personality And Performance

Presidential Personality And Performance PDF Author: Alexander L George
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000308073
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
This book, which examines the leadership styles and decisionmaking practices of presidents from Woodrow Wilson to Bill Clinton, reflects the authors interest for over half a century in the impact of personality on the political behavior of our political leaders. Its contents range from the story of the Georges collaboration on their pioneering stud

The Madman in the White House

The Madman in the White House PDF Author: Patrick Weil
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674293258
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
“A rich study of the role of personal psychology in the shaping of the new global order after World War I. So long as so much political power is concentrated in one human mind, we are all at the mercy of the next madman in the White House.” —Gary J. Bass, author of The Blood Telegram The notorious psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson, rediscovered nearly a century after it was written by Sigmund Freud and US diplomat William C. Bullitt, sheds new light on how the mental health of a controversial American president shaped world events. When the fate of millions rests on the decisions of a mentally compromised leader, what can one person do? Disillusioned by President Woodrow Wilson’s destructive and irrational handling of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, a US diplomat named William C. Bullitt asked this very question. With the help of his friend Sigmund Freud, Bullitt set out to write a psychological analysis of the president. He gathered material from personal archives and interviewed members of Wilson’s inner circle. In The Madman in the White House, Patrick Weil resurrects this forgotten portrait of a troubled president. After two years of collaboration, Bullitt and Freud signed off on a manuscript in April 1932. But the book was not published until 1966, nearly thirty years after Freud’s death and only months before Bullitt’s. The published edition was heavily redacted, and by the time it was released, the mystique of psychoanalysis had waned in popular culture and Wilson’s legacy was unassailable. The psychological study was panned by critics, and Freud’s descendants denied his involvement in the project. For nearly a century, the mysterious, original Bullitt and Freud manuscript remained hidden from the public. Then in 2014, while browsing the archives of Yale University, Weil happened upon the text. Based on his reading of the 1932 manuscript, Weil examines the significance of Bullitt and Freud’s findings and offers a major reassessment of the notorious psychobiography. The result is a powerful warning about the influence a single unbalanced personality can have on the course of history.

Colonel House

Colonel House PDF Author: Charles E. Neu
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199391432
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 737

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Book Description
A man who lived his life mostly in the shadows, Edward M. House is little known or remembered today; yet he was one of the most influential figures of the Wilson presidency. Wilson's chief political advisor, House played a key role in international diplomacy, and had a significant hand in crafting the Fourteen Points at the Paris Peace Conference. Though the intimate friendship between the president and his advisor ultimately unraveled in the wake of these negotiations, House's role in the Wilson administration had a lasting impact on 20th century international politics. In this seminal biography, Charles E. Neu details the life of "Colonel" House, a Texas landowner who rose to become one of the century's greatest political operators. Ambitious and persuasive, House worked largely behind the scenes, developing ties of loyalty and using patronage to rally party workers behind his candidates. In 1911 he met Woodrow Wilson, and almost immediately the two formed what would become one of the most famous friendships in American political history. House became a high-level political intermediary in the Wilson administration, proving particularly adept at managing the intangible realm of human relations. After World War I erupted, House, realizing the complexity of the struggle and the dangers and opportunities it posed for the United States, began traveling to and from Europe as the president's personal representative. Eventually he helped Wilson recognize the need to devise a way to end the war that would place the United States at the center of a new world order. In this balanced account, Neu shows that while House was a resourceful and imaginative diplomat, his analysis of wartime politics was erratic. He relied too heavily on personal contacts, often exaggerating his accomplishments and missing the larger historical forces that shaped the policies of the warring powers. Ultimately, as the Paris Peace Conference unfolded, differences appeared between Wilson and his counselor. Their divergent views on the negotiations led to a bitter split, and after the president left France in June of 1919, he would never see House again. Despite this break, Neu refutes the idea that Wilson and House were antagonists. They shared the same beliefs and aspirations and were, Neu shows, part of an unusual partnership. As an organizer, tactician, and confidant, House helped to make possible Wilson's achievements, and this impressive biography restores the enigmatic counselor to his place at the center of that presidency.

Al Smith: Hero of the Cities (A Political Portrait Drawing on the Papers of Frances Perkins)

Al Smith: Hero of the Cities (A Political Portrait Drawing on the Papers of Frances Perkins) PDF Author: Matthew Josephson
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Al Smith (1873-1944) was born and grew up in New York’s Lower East Side slums and got his start in politics under Tammany Hall sponsorship. Frances Perkins was a New Englander, a trained social worker who became a public figure when Smith appointed her to the New York State Industrial Commission. They shared a concern for working people and a love for the Empire State, which Smith served as governor for four precedent-breaking terms between 1919 and 1928 after serving in the New York State Assembly between 1904 and 1915 as a member and later as Speaker. Smith considered himself an Assemblyman. His record as governor is based on the solid understanding of politics he acquired in those years. It was also fostered by his encounter, at a decisive stage, with a group of reformers and social workers, including Belle Moskowitz who became his chief political strategist. Smith’s own great contribution was to show how reform could be made practicable. As governor, Smith fought a running battle with an obstructive legislature; he was able to reorganize New York State’s sprawling executive departments, protect women and children in industry, strengthen workmen’s compensation laws and shorten their working hours, stop the handouts of state resources to private companies, and expand recreational areas for the benefit of the public. He cut taxes while building hospitals, schools and low-cost housing developments. When the legislature balked, he appealed to the people on radio, and they responded with avalanches of letters and telegrams to their representatives. The dauntless spirit with which he battled his adversaries earned him the title “The fighting Governor.” After his defeat for the Presidency in 1928, Smith was able to hand on to his successor — a comparatively inexperienced politician named Franklin D. Roosevelt — a working state government and a blueprint for social reform which Roosevelt would put to good use. At the time of her death in 1965 Frances Perkins was working on a book about Al Smith as she knew him. Her notes, the few chapters she had written, and the oral history she recorded for Columbia University were turned over to Matthew and Hannah Josephson, who used them and their own exhaustive research to write this biography. “The Josephsons, both authors in their own right... were invited to complete the unfinished biography of Smith that Frances Perkins left behind at her death in 1965. Finding only a rather bare start, they ended up writing it ‘90%’ themselves... The sections on Smith’s early years provide a delightful picture of the Old East Side and a thriving Tammany Hall... A happily executed portrait of an eminent and engaging American.” — Kirkus Reviews “The most thorough study yet available of Smith’s career, and one that also pays considerable attention to Frances Perkins’ contributions to reform during the Progressive period and during Smith’s gubernatorial administrations... [a] useful biography of Al Smith.” — Joel A. Tarr, The American Historical Review “The book reflects the warmth and vigour of its subject... The book’s principal contribution is its emphasis on Smith’s tremendous effectiveness both as a party leader and as a reformer. His quarter-century of almost continuous success was founded on exceptional memory, intense application, a sharp wit and shrewd appeals to the people. His enduring monuments are his reform of the state administration, his fight against the utilities, and his work in housing, conservation and social reform.” — Michael Simpson, History “The Josephsons’ political portrait is of a man who was at one and the same time an ambitious and successful politician who could skillfully manipulate the party system, reward friends and punish enemies, hold personal grudges, yet temper his actions with genuine humanistic concern for the welfare of the first- and second-generation immigrants for whom he was both spokesman and symbol.” — John L. Shover, The Pacific Northwest Quarterly “The Josephsons’ biography is... comprehensive, providing careful and discerning detail about Smith’s life and career.” — William W. Bremer, The Wisconsin Magazine of History

Edith and Woodrow

Edith and Woodrow PDF Author: Phyllis Lee Levin
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 074321756X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
Elegantly written, tirelessly researched, full of shocking revelations, Edith and Woodrow offers the definitive examination of the controversial role Woodrow Wilson's second wife played in running the country. "The story of Wilson's second marriage, and of the large events on which its shadow was cast, is darker and more devious, and more astonishing, than previously recorded." -- from the Preface Constructing a thrilling, tightly contained narrative around a trove of previously undisclosed documents, medical diagnoses, White House memoranda, and internal documents, acclaimed journalist and historian Phyllis Lee Levin sheds new light on the central role of Edith Bolling Galt in Woodrow Wilson's administration. Shortly after Ellen Wilson's death on the eve of World War I in 1914, President Wilson was swept off his feet by Edith Bolling Galt. They were married in December 1915, and, Levin shows, Edith Wilson set out immediately to consolidate her influence on him and tried to destroy his relationships with Colonel House, his closest friend and adviser, and with Joe Tumulty, his longtime secretary. Wilson resisted these efforts, but Edith was persistent and eventually succeeded. With the quick ending of World War I following America's entry in 1918, Wilson left for the Paris Peace Conference, where he pushed for the establishment of the League of Nations. Congress, led by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, resisted the idea of an international body that would require one country to go to the defense of another and blocked ratification. Defiant, Wilson set out on a cross-country tour to convince the American people to support him. It was during the middle of this tour, in the fall of 1919, that he suffered a devastating stroke and was rushed back to Washington. Although there has always been controversy regarding Edith Wilson's role in the eighteen months remaining of Wilson's second term, it is clear now from newly released medical records that the stroke had totally incapacitated him. Citing this information and numerous specific memoranda, journals, and diaries, Levin makes a powerfully persuasive case that Mrs. Wilson all but singlehandedly ran the country during this time. Ten years in the making, Edith and Woodrow is a magnificent, dramatic, and deeply rewarding work of history.

The Wilsonian Moment

The Wilsonian Moment PDF Author: Erez Manela
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019988417X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, while key decisions were debated by the victorious Allied powers, a multitude of smaller nations and colonies held their breath, waiting to see how their fates would be decided. President Woodrow Wilson, in his Fourteen Points, had called for "a free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims," giving equal weight would be given to the opinions of the colonized peoples and the colonial powers. Among those nations now paying close attention to Wilson's words and actions were the budding nationalist leaders of four disparate non-Western societies--Egypt, India, China, and Korea. That spring, Wilson's words would help ignite political upheavals in all four of these countries. This book is the first to place the 1919 Revolution in Egypt, the Rowlatt Satyagraha in India, the May Fourth movement in China, and the March First uprising in Korea in the context of a broader "Wilsonian moment" that challenged the existing international order. Using primary source material from America, Europe, and Asia, historian Erez Manela tells the story of how emerging nationalist movements appropriated Wilsonian language and adapted it to their own local culture and politics as they launched into action on the international stage. The rapid disintegration of the Wilsonian promise left a legacy of disillusionment and facilitated the spread of revisionist ideologies and movements in these societies; future leaders of Third World liberation movements--Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and Jawaharlal Nehru, among others--were profoundly shaped by their experiences at the time. The importance of the Paris Peace Conference and Wilson's influence on international affairs far from the battlefields of Europe cannot be underestimated. Now, for the first time, we can clearly see just how the events played out at Versailles sparked a wave of nationalism that is still resonating globally today.

Decision at the Chesapeake

Decision at the Chesapeake PDF Author: Harold Atkins Larrabee
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
“The Battle of Chesapeake Bay was one of the decisive battles of the world. Before it, the creation of the United States of America was possible; after it, it was certain.” — Michael Lewis, The History of the British Navy “On the afternoon of September 5, 1781, off the Capes of Virginia, two and a half hours of cannonading between warships of the British and French navies determined the outcome of the American Revolution. It was the one decisive engagement of the bitter six-year struggle of the thirteen colonies against England, and it could have gone either way. Not many Americans have ever heard of it... Almost no one, at the time, seems to have grasped its full significance. George III called it ‘a drawn battle’; Rear Admiral Thomas Graves, ‘a lively skirmish’; Rear Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, ‘a feeble action’; and George Washington, ‘a partial engagement.’ As modern battles go it was a small affair. Probably less than ten thousand men came under fire on each side, and the total casualties did not exceed six hundred... One of the many paradoxes about the Chesapeake struggle is that one of the greatest naval victories of all time was decisive because it was indecisive. Not a single ship was taken or sunk during the battle itself, although the British were forced to burn one afterwards; and neither admiral was driven from the field. Yet the result was as crushing to the hopes of General Earl Cornwallis as if every British warship had been sent to the bottom. To save his army of seven thousand men, the British fleet had to win control of Chesapeake Bay. This it failed to do. England lost naval supremacy just long enough to insure the winning of American independence. Once the sea-approaches to the Chesapeake were sealed the siege of Yorktown and Cornwallis’s surrender were foregone conclusions.” — Harold A. Larrabee, Introduction to Decision at the Chesapeake “[An] excellent study of the naval battle fought off the Chesapeake on Sept. 5, 1781, between French and English fleets... The account of the battle itself takes up only a small portion of the book, the rest being devoted to the backgrounds of the war, brief biographies of politicians and officers on both sides... the reasons behind Cornwallis’s fatal decision to fortify himself at Yorktown, and to puncturing long-accepted theories as to why France sent ‘foreign aid’ to America. Carefully documented and highly readable, filled with fascinating details of 18th-century naval warfare, the book will appeal to naval buffs ashore and afloat and to all historians of America’s first Civil War.” — Kirkus Reviews “Harold A. Larrabee does [the story of the Yorktown campaign] full justice... his lucid and fast-moving account will interest any one who cares to know the role of sea power in achieving American independence... The author’s treatment of the Yorktown campaign itself is excellent... In discussing the naval operations, Larrabee is at his best... The story is told in all its complexity, yet is never mystifying. It is so clear that the reader can follow it with ease, and so vivid that he feels like an eyewitness of a campaign that in its combination of brilliance and blunder is perennially fascinating.” — William B. Willcox, The Journal of Modern History “Decision at the Chesapeake is a delight. It combines scholarly acumen, scholarly methodology, and a good style — not what is popularly labeled scholarly — with a sense of direction and purpose. The author endeavors to demonstrate, and to my mind does it very well, that the fate of Cornwallis was definitely determined not so much by his own actions but because the British lost control of the sea in early September 1781.” — S. W. Jackman, The William and Mary Quarterly “For the student of sea power this is interesting reading, indeed. It has been written: ‘The Battle of Chesapeake Bay was one of the decisive battles of the world. Before it, the creation of the United States of America was possible; after it, it was certain.’ The author sets out to explore this thesis, and brings together from many sources-some of them obscure-most of what is known about this battle of the American Revolution. War, certainly, can and must be viewed from many perspectives, and the author is not unmindful of this.” — F. A. Baldwin, Naval War College Review “With a keen sense of the dramatic, a strict adherence to fact, and a facile pen, the author has created an outstanding contribution to the naval history of the American Revolution, and has presented another graphic illustration of the importance of sea power in warfare... Dr. Larrabee has written one of the most penetrating accounts of the events leading up to the battle and a vivid word picture of the battle itself. His device of creating a stage, whereon the various ‘Architects of Defeat’ exhibit either their incompetence or their blunders, is a piece of graphic historical writing. There are profiles of George III, and the Lords North, Germain and Sandwich, which clearly expose their fatuous belief that the American Colonies could be conquered with ease; of the Admirals Graves, Hood and Rodney, and the Generals Clinton and Cornwallis, which place them in no favorable light as strategists or tacticians.” — William Bell Clark, The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography

The World of Swope

The World of Swope PDF Author: E. J. Kahn Jr.
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
Herbert Bayard Swope (1882-1958) was a reporter, foreign correspondent and newspaper editor: he spent most of his career at the New York World and was the first and three-time recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Reporting. He knew virtually everyone, gangsters, socialites, ward politicians and American Presidents. Wherever he went he dominated the gathering by virtue of his height, his flaming red hair, his seemingly inexhaustible fund of information on all subjects and his unabashed enthusiasm for taking center stage. After leaving journalism in the late 1920s, Swope was at various times, and often simultaneously, a force in the Democratic party, adviser to politicians, financiers and industrialists, New York State Racing Commissioner, consultant to a Secretary of War, a founder and director of Freedom House, and confidant of Al Smith, Bernard Baruch and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He also gambled enthusiastically and for breathtaking stakes, and entertained lavishly. “[A] merciless exposure as well as a celebration of [Swope’s] career. Mr. Kahn has brought to his work the intelligence, polish and sophistication which have distinguished his 10 previous books and his New Yorker pieces... Mr. Kahn tells us more about Herbert Bayard Swope than we care to know... What saves this excellent biography, however, is that in digging up, sorting and assembling so impressive an array of material, Mr. Kahn has also given us an engaging, fascinating picture of only yesterday in New York.” — John Tebbel, The New York Times “Kahn's biography is perceptive as opposed to intimate, reflective instead of psychoanalytic... A thorough enough subtle, and well-written book.” — Kirkus