Woodrow Wilson was a complicated man and he dealt with complicated issue so it seems fairly obvious that this biography must be complicated. In “Wilson”, A. Scott Berg tells this story well. There are some places where the complications and details slow down the reading but I think Berg gets about as close as you can get to a page-turner given the amount of material and complexity of material in some places.

He piqued my interest with an introduction about President Wilson’s journey to Europe to settle the terms of the peace after World War I. I was interested (otherwise I wouldn’t have even attempted the 800+ pages here) but this made me more interested.

Then Berg gives a more or less chronological account of his life giving you a better understanding of this man who would be President. I’ll not go into detail here but I will say Berg tells this well. You can probably find many short summaries of his life online.

Woodrow Wilson graduated from Princeton (Class of 1879) and would return there after practicing law, earning a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and several faculty positions. He was a respected academic and wrote extensively on government and politics. In 1890 Wilson joined the Princeton faculty and in 1902 became president of Princeton.

In 1910 the political bosses in New Jersey thought he was an electable candidate for Governor and could be easily controlled. He was elected and they were very surprised.

Then with about a year of political experience, he was chosen as the Democratic candidate for President. The bulk of the book describes the next 8 years as president and then his final years. Wilson is often rated among our greatest presidents. Read this book and you’ll learn why.

I enjoyed the book. It is a commitment to read book of this length but it is certainly worth it.