History Camp Discussions
Thursday, January 16 @ 8 pm Eastern
Christopher Cox
Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn

From the Publisher:

A timely reassessment of Woodrow Wilson and his role in the long national struggle for racial equality and women’s voting rights.

More than a century after he dominated American politics, Woodrow Wilson still fascinates. With panoramic sweep, Woodrow Wilson: The Light Withdrawn reassesses his life and his role in the movements for racial equality and women’s suffrage. The Wilson that emerges is a man superbly unsuited to the moment when he ascended to the presidency in 1912, as the struggle for women’s voting rights in America reached the tipping point.

The first southern Democrat to occupy the White House since the Civil War era brought with him to Washington like-minded men who quickly set to work segregating the federal government. Wilson’s own sympathy for Jim Crow and states’ rights animated his years-long hostility to the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, which promised universal suffrage backed by federal enforcement. Women demonstrating for voting rights found themselves demonized in government propaganda, beaten and starved while illegally imprisoned, and even confined to the insane asylum.

When, in the twilight of his second term, two-thirds of Congress stood on the threshold of passing the Anthony Amendment, Wilson abruptly switched his position. But in sympathy with like-minded southern Democrats, he acquiesced in a “race rider” that would protect Jim Crow. The heroes responsible for the eventual success of the unadulterated Anthony Amendment are brought to life by Christopher Cox, an author steeped in the ways of Washington and political power. This is a brilliant, carefully researched work that puts you at the center of one of the greatest advances in the history of American democracy.

Reviews:

“Cox presents an Everest of evidence that Wilson’s progressivism smoothly melded with his authoritarianism. . . . A stunning chronicle.” – George F. Will, The Washington Post

“Christopher Cox has written a powerful reappraisal of the 28th U.S. president that reaches devastating conclusions.” – The Christian Science Monitor

“A dispassionate new biography. . . . A doggedly researched and soberly told story of American progress—and the president who stood in its way. . . . Wilson’s presidency is a reminder of Congress’s essential role as a change-maker.” – The Economist

“A Pulitzer Prize-worthy new history about former President Woodrow Wilson.” – The Washington Examiner

“Woodrow Wilson was a man of contradictions. Christopher Cox lays them bare in this unflinching biography. An essential read for anyone who wants to know if we should honor Wilson or shun him—or simply wants to understand him better.” – Beverly Gage, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

“[A] deeply researched, important new biography… Richly detailed and provides an array of shocking examples that might be new to armchair historians.” – Washington Monthly

“[An] assiduously researched biography. . . . The chapters chronicling the Silent Sentinels are difficult to read without sadness.” – Barton Swaim, The Wall Street Journal

Join us at HistoryCamp.org/discussions for this free event and watch replays of earlier interviews, presentations, and discussions.