The Moralist

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

I read this because I wanted to know what was behind Rudolf Steiner's very negative comments about Woodrow Wilson. I learned so much! His story really is a great tragedy of moral overreaching and hidden weakness. We need to learn from this to have the honesty to admit and overcome our faults, rather than ignoring and covering them up until they become a disaster of epic proportions. Working on it myself – I can't even imagine trying to take on the challenges of political office.

As others have noted, the book is really mostly about Wilson's presidential years (his earlier life is much more briefly treated) and “The World He Made” gets a brief postscript in the epilogue. The peace conference was covered in great detail, and left me in awe and dismay. What mistakes were made there, that we are still not recovered from. Eye opening. And the cover-up of Wilson's final years in office, what a bizarre episode in American history. I had no idea this had even happened.