August Heckscher

A longtime active participant in Democratic Party affairs and a one-time presidential appointee, August Heckscher clearly came to this work with a certain sympathy for Woodrow Wilson. Throughout this critical biography, however, he makes a fair assessment of the former president's life. Surprisingly, the part of the study devoted to Wilson's career at Princeton is the most interesting. Not only did Wilson signal the ideals and methodology he would later bring to the White House, but he also proved an adept political infighter who learned his lessons well and was ready to apply them first as the governor of New Jersey and, then, as president of the United States.

The most controversial part of the book no doubt is Heckscher's softening of the image of Edith Wilson, Woodrow's second wife. Heckscher provides an understanding of her situation, while acknowledging her fears. insecurities, and what otherwise would be termed paranoia, but dismisses the idea that she governed as the effective US president at this time. The period of Wilson's post-stroke time in the White House and the years immediately thereafter make for sad reading. It is almost a classical tragedy, a man who rose through the gifts of oratory and the intellect struck down and incapacitated, unable to speak, write, or argue.

Heckscher had a considerable intellectual life, active in the arts and letters. This work on Wilson was perhaps one of the culminating efforts of his career. And it goes to show what someone with academic gifts can do, unburdened by university politics and free to write as a public intellectual. This is the sort of biographical study that is in short supply these days, sympathetic towards its subject yet realistic and absent of any political tendentiousness.… (mehr)