American Experience: Woodrow Wilson

I enjoyed the DVD of President Woodrow Wilson very much. I found it to be very informative And I learned a great deal about our Nations 28th President. I would recommend it to anyone who loves history.

Having admired Wilson for a long time, I found the film gave me information that showed his clay feet, but also the things I have appreciated about him. It was well presented/

Great

great buy

This is a very worthy documentary on an unusually important President. I like the way in which Wilson the lecherous academic (an understudied type) is described as a man of passion towards women, and openly laughed when his visit to one woman was described as "we don't know how far he went with her - from what we know of him, probably very far". There is also a lot of stalking about by a man in glasses - or is this the actual Wilson (did they have colour movies in 1912)?One interesting question temporarily raised in the movie concerned how an academic in his ivory tower could handle some of the most corrupt politicians in America. One answer not given is Wilson's own - that his own experience of academic politics made the New Jersey bosses appear to him as mere amateurs.This film raises all sorts of historical questions in an interesting set of side-movies attached to the main documentary, though they are only brief (how come La Follette never gets a mention?) But you get the sense of a film made for schools. A turbulent period of American history passes before our eyes, but as in a school lesson disturbing questions are not raised.Did Wilson's earlier political ideas play a role in his political activity? All you get is a brief comment that Wilson's early writings show his concern for a greater role for the State. So why wasn't he a Bull Moose progressive like Roosevelt? Having said that, the programme does bring out the political differences between Wilson and Roosevelt in 1912. Perhaps this indicates that Wilson's writings on The State were therefore more complex? You wouldn't find out here, any more than you would find out in a school textbook.Why did a progressive like Wilson preside over a period of imperial expansion which would have been described as dollar dilplomacy under his predecessors? Does it have any connection with the Wilsonian vision of the neo-cons of today??A Red Scare, with its roots in wartime hysteria, is shown as in a US History textbook; but wasn't Wilson, who presided over the worst excesses in the abuse of civil rights in US history, seen as a great progressive President? What is this Progressivism, which can launch social reform while having people arrested merely for saying openly that the war was being fought for profits?You'll never find out by reading a US History textbook for schools. And you'll never find out by watching this documentary (honourable exception - the appearance by historian Walter la Feber).Ouch, a lot of work went in this documentary..I can tell, and the makers will hate me if they ever read this. But a lot of work goes into textbooks. Still as dull as ditchwater.

good story from the ge go

Beautifully done documentary, very enjoyable but a sad life for a great visionary.

all ok

I like it.Very good and well done.