Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House by Phyllis Lee Levin ISBN: 0-7432-1158-8 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 25 September, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.56 (9 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: An uncritical, biased, attempt at biography
Comment: There are several fundamental flaws in Ms. Levin's book. First and foremost, she sympathizes with Col. Edward House. Plain and simple House is not one to treat sympathetically. A critical biography of the Wilson family would point out that Col. House deliberately attempted to sabotage the President's great peace plans starting in late 1916 (a great friend and confidant). House (and Secretary of State Lansing) collaborated with the British assuring them that the President would eventually enter the war on the side of the allies. In reality, President Wilson had no desire to enter the war (even after the German's resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917). Wilson waited two long months to finally make the decision. Edith Wilson perspicaciously distrusted House from the beginning. Maybe it was a hunch, perhaps she saw through his rather obsequious personality, but she destroyed Woodrow's relationship with House. In fact, after January 1917, House no longer held a high position in the President's mind. In short, Mrs. Levin is highly critical of the Wilson's because they abandoned Col. House.
Second, Mrs. Levin's assertion that Edith Wilson was the first female president is highly overstated. While she did control, along with Dr. Grayson and Secretary Tumulty, who and what the President saw she never made an important governmental decision. While Wilson was unable to appear in public he was able to read and perform limited duties of his office. Any scholar who has combed even the surface of Wilson's papers understands this. For an unbiased and complete review of Wilson in the months before and after his infamous stroke an interested reader should look at John Milton Cooper's "Breaking the Heart of the World." Cooper is the foremost living authority on Wilson.
My point here is not to completely excoriate Mrs. Levin's book but to caution readers of its flaws. There are much better books on both President Wilson and the first lady: the mentioned book by Cooper, Arthur Link's "Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era," and John Cooper's dual biography of Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, "The Warrior and the Priest." As a student of Wilson I am most disappointed by Levin's failure to observe Wilson's high moral purpose and the energy which he devoted to it (this is what eventually brought on the stroke).
Rating: 3
Summary: Disappointing
Comment: Being a fan of presidential biographies and after having read some books on both of the Wilsons, I was very excited to see what appeared to be a dual biography of the couple. Levin's book was dry and downright boring . It is a very interesting and debatable premise....whether Edith Wilson really "ran" the White House when Woodrow was incapacitated by stroke.
My complaints are that the book was much more Woodrow than Edith and I am still not sure I feel like I buy Levin's theme that Edith was the first female president.
I was surprised to learn just how incapacitated Wilson was and how little the country was aware of.
This could have been a much better book.
Rating: 2
Summary: It must be me
Comment: Checking the other customer (and editorial) reviews, I find that no one had the reaction I did - this is a very poorly written book on an interesting subject. Author Levin wears her agenda on her sleeve from Page One, repeatedly skews the narrative to her own purposes, and fails to footnote responsibly.
What's more, her chronology is so haphazard, and she skips around so much, that the reader is never quite sure what year or country we're in at any given time, or what the heck is going on, or who said what to whom.
Add a boatload of odd editorial boo-boos and you have a very disappointing book.
 |
Title: Breaking the Heart of the World by John Milton Cooper ISBN: 0521807867 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $40.00 |
 |
Title: Paris 1919 : Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillan ISBN: 0375760520 Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: Wilsonianism: Woodrow Wilson and His Legacy in American Foreign Relations by Lloyd E. Ambrosius ISBN: 1403960097 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: 06 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
 |
Title: An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek ISBN: 0316172383 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 13 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
 |
Title: Woodrow Wilson and Colonel House : A Personality Study by Alexander L. and Juliette L. George ISBN: 0486211444 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1964 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
