This is the moving story of the "amateur" who became one of our strongest Presidents, the man of peace who was forced to lead his nation to war, the champion of the New Freedom at home and the League of Nations for the world.

In 1910, offering the public only his record as the progressive head of Princeton University and a moral fervor inherited from his clergyman father, Wilson upset all predictions to become Governor of New Jersey. Two years later, with the Republican part badly split and the country eager for reform, he scored an even more amazing victory when he was elected President of the United States.

Through sheer force of will, he had made into law the major planks of his New Freedom—legislation designed to correct economic injustice. His program toward Latin America, however, proved less successful as he attempted to implant his democratic ideals among alien peoples. With America's entry into World War I and the subsequent victory over Germany, both these features of Wilson's policy—his high minded goals, and his lack of knowledge of the world—were brought into focus.

Arriving in Europe to help draw up the peace treaty of Versailles, he was greeted by a war weary populace with near religious adulation. But in the treaty chambers themselves, he was forced to compromise with the harsh realities of European power politics. And a still greater blow awaited him in America when Congress refused to ratify the treaty setting up a League of Nations to preserve peace for all time.

Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, it has remained for our generation to realize the last and greatest dream of a man whose career blended achievement and frustration, triumph and tragedy.

From the book