Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace by Arthur S. LinkReview by: Norman A. GraebnerThe American Historical Review, Vol. 85, No. 2 (Apr., 1980), pp. 473-474Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1860714 .

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United States 473

have it both ways. In seeing himself as a "broken liberal" with democracy rejected, compassion gone, and willing to accept the "necessary" harshness of historical process, Steffens particularly seemed to enjoy attacking his former liberal allies. Yet, he never formally entered the Communist Party. Per- haps his life-long liberalism, which "disqualified him from judging the revolution" (p. 112), also kept him from joining it. Like Moses, he was not to cross over into the promised land. Justin Kaplan's easily flowing biography (Lincoln Steffens: A Biography [1974]) is illuminating about Steffens's life, and Pat- rick Palermo's briefer account offers excellent guid- ance for his politics. Even so, Lincoln Steffens re- mains more interesting than all of us who write about him; that is why we still do.

DAVII) CHALMERS

University of Florida

IOUIS FILLER. Progressivism and Muckraking. (Biblio- graphic Guides for Contemporary Collections.) New York: R. R. Bowker. 1976. Pp. xiv, 200.

Louis Filler has written a thoughtful and readable interpretative bibliography of Progressivism and muckraking, following his theme through the nine- teenth and twentieth centuries and basing his essay on intensive and extensive reading in literary and historical materials. He evaluates the pertinent lit- erature that presaged the Progressive impulse and muckraking, thoroughly examines the important works of and about the Progressive era, traces its continuing importance through the succeeding dec- ades, and finally touches upon its meaning for the present. If current writing in this vein were to reach a large enough audience to be effective, he suggests, it would have to drop its cliches about businessmen and fulfill the emotional and literary needs of the public.

Two aspects of this slender volume limit its effec- tiveness, at least for this reviewer. While Filler rec- ognizes that the Progressives' "major cause ap- peared to be monopoly, with its challenge to American traditions of freedom" (p. 72), the sen- tence only appears three-fifths of the way through the book, and the reaction to trusts is casually men- tioned earlier in a discussion about labor and capi- tal. Since the economic and political threat of pri- vate economic concentration was central to Progressive thought, the de-emphasis of this theme unbalances the volume. Without this focus we can- not see the change in Progressivism by the sixties that enabled the Kennedy-Johnson administra- tions-little concerned about oligopolies to give us Telstar and social reform.

The second reservation is his treatment of social- ism as "a radical wing to progressivism" (p. 59), a

common, but mistaken premise. While the spread of both movements derived from a growing concern with the overweening power of big business, and socialists were willing to support Progressive pallia- tives while Progressives borrowed from the immedi- ate program of the socialists, they differed funda- mentally on the ownership and operation of the means of production. While Progressives were aware of the importance of economic power in so- ciety, unlike the socialists they felt that corporate power could be restrained while ownership and de- cision making remained in private hands, a faith not borne out by history. As a result of his defini- tion Filler illustrates a point about Progressivism ex- clusively with two socialist authors, and this could be misleading.

Nevertheless, the author has penned a fine work and he is entitled to his own structure and defini- tions.

FREI) GREENBAUM

Queensborough Community College, City University of New York

ARTHUR S. LINK. Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace. Arlington Heights, Ill.: AHM Publishing. 1979. Pp. viii, 138. Cloth $9.95, paper $5.95.

In 1957 Arthur Link distilled his views on Woodrow Wilson as a world leader in a slim volume, Wilson the Diplomatist. For diplomatic historians the contri- bution was of immense value. Now Link has embo- died his changing convictions in a markedly differ- ent book, Woodrow Wilson: Revolution, War, and Peace. In his earlier volume the author recognized weak- nesses in Wilson's effort to avoid or ignore the reali- ties that frustrated his principles. In his more recent effort he has eliminated such criticism and has pro- duced, in large measure, the ultimate defense of Wilson's leadership. The list of achievements that conclude the first essay is long and impressive. While acknowledging that Wilson's acceptance of British maritime practice served the American in- terest in a British victory, the author, in his second and third essays, has introduced new and valuable material, especially a long note that Wilson dictated in the autumn of 1916, to substantiate Wilson's con- cern for a peace without victory. In accepting war in April 1917, Wilson hoped to terminate the war quickly and to establish his leadership in the build- ing of a new postwar order. That Wilson failed to achieve an ideal peace at Versailles the author at- tributes less to Wilson's failures than to the special barriers he faced in the demands and personalities of Clemenceau, Lloyd George, and Orlando. Link does not attribute Wilson's loss of power to such factors as his refusal to negotiate with the Allies while they still required American aid or his deci-

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474 Reviews of Books

sions to introduce the peace issue into the 1918 con- gressional elections, to lead the American delega- tion at Paris in person, and to ignore Republican Senators in his selection of the peace commission.

In this new volume the author upholds Wilson's decision to protect his treaty against reservations, for League membership on Wilson's terms alone, he agrees, would have assured a responsible exercise of American power. Wilson advocated a strong system of collective security, but he never answered the conflicting questions of interest, obligation, sover- eignty, and power embodied in the problem of col- lective security. Still, the author offers no criticism of Wilson's vision of a new order of peace based on the League of Nations. He lauds the Paris settle- ment for establishing "the foundation of what could have been a viable and secure world order, if only the victors had maintained the will to build upon it" (p. 103). In the 1957 volume the author noted that Wilson's hopes for collective security ultimately took the form of regional alliances such as NATO. In the new volume he views the UN as the vindica- tion of Wilson's vision. He concludes the book with a condemnation of those who ignored Wilson's plea for collective security and thus permitted another war to come. But did the failure of the democracies lay in not building up the League, as the author suggests, or in the refusal of the victors to maintain adequate national policies? Successful collective security in the 1930s would have reflected mutual interests and not membership in the League of Na- tions. League membership offered no substitute for effective national action; yet the specific interests of the United States worth pursuing and the power they required did not seem to concern Wilson at all.

NORMAN A. GRAEBNER

Universi(y of Virginia

I)AVII) BURNER. Herbert Hoover: A Public Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1979. Pp. xii, 433. $15.95.

Although over a decade of research and preparation went into this biography, it still leaves one with the impression that David Burner would have rather written a longer study about his subject and taken more time to do it. Whatever the reason, there is an unfinished quality to both the content and conceptual analysis that gives this book a sense of being hurried or incomplete. Indeed, Burner casts little light on the last third of Hoover's life be- tween 1933 and 1964, although he does fill major gaps in our knowledge about the first third of it.

The opening chapters dealing with Hoover's formative years in Iowa, Oregon, and California, and his career as an international engineer are rich in detail. Hoover's far-flung activities before 1914 have never been so thoroughly documented. A later

chapter on his subsequent reform activities as presi- dent during the eight months prior to the Great De- pression is probably the most original section. It clearly indicates that Hoover was well on his way to becoming the most progressive and successful Re- publican leader since Theodore Roosevelt. We learn about the "important and least-known ac- tions" (p. 213) of the thirty-first president, including his stands on Indian rights, prison reform, land and energy conservation, the building of inland water- ways, federal judiciary appointments, agricultural policy, and even his attempts at enhancing the civil liberties of blacks, women, and Jews.

One difficulty with this biography is that, aside from the first eight months of Hoover's ill-fated ad- ministration, Burner fails to offer particularly new or insightful material about the middle third of his career-the period between 1920 and 1933 when Hoover was secretary of commerce and a depression president. A more comprehensive conceptualization of his actions during these years can be found in Ellis Hawley's The Great War and the Search for a Mod- em Order: A History of the American People and Their In- stitutions, 1917-1933 (1979). Moreover, the single chapter on foreign policy, along with a few isolated comments in other segments of the work, simply do not do justice to Hoover's systemic approach to for- eign and domestic policy, especially during the years he headed the commerce department under Harding and Coolidge. This neglect of Hoover's in- fluence on American diplomacy in the 1920s is par- ticularly noticeable because Burner amply details the impact Hoover had on world affairs during the First World War. Crucial transitions in his thought on foreign and domestic issues between 1918 and 1921 such as the ideology of voluntarism, food di- plomacy, the Russian Revolution, and inter- national economics are given more attention in the collection of essays edited by Lawrence E. Gelfand, Herbert Hoover: The Great War and Its Aftermath, 1914- 1923 (1979).

Another analytical weakness of the biography arises when Burner compares Hoover and his brand of progressivism with the thought and actions of three other historical figures-Thorstein Veblen, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. He characterizes Hoover's foreign policy as in the tradi- tion of Wilsonian internationalism (pp. 147, 184, 185, 313, 334, 336); his domestic policies as often like those of "his hero" Theodore Roosevelt (pp. 70, 150, 160, 178, 215, 297); and his engineering man- agement style as most like that of Thorstein Veblen (pp. 63, 64, 67, 73, 75, 157, 210). Unfortunately, Burner does not discuss how Hoover managed to overcome the contradictions implicit in any blend of progressivism represented by these three men. It is also not made clear how their views could be squared with Hoover's seemingly contradictory

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