Wilson (book)
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| Author | A. Scott Berg |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Biography |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Putnam Publishing Group |
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Publication date
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September 10, 2013 |
| Media type | Hardcover |
| Pages | 832 |
| ISBN | |
| Preceded by | Kate Remembered |
Wilson is a 2013 biography of the 28th President of the United States Woodrow Wilson by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author A. Scott Berg. The book is a New York Times Best Seller.
When asked why he spent the last thirteen years writing a biography of Wilson, Berg replied "The simple answer is that he was the architect of much of the last century and re-drew the map of the world." But there were personal reasons, as well. Berg was given a copy of Gene Smith’s “When the Cheering Stopped: The Last Years of Woodrow Wilson" when he was in the 11th grade and his "budding obsession" has grown ever since. At 15, he put a picture of Wilson on his bedroom wall, a campaign poster given to him by his brother, Jeff
The author had four heroes when he was in high school: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Adlai Stevenson, Woodrow Wilson, and Don Quixote. The fact that the first three went to Princeton helped induce Berg to enroll. Berg spent his college years at Princeton, the college Wilson was president of, graduating in 1971. He also taught a class in biography writing while there doing research for the book.
Berg began researching Wilson in 2000: "I have an image of him in my mind that is unlike any picture I have seen anywhere else, based on material at Princeton and 35 years of researching and thinking about him". “When most people think of Woodrow Wilson, they see a dour minister’s son who never cracked a smile, where in fact he was a man of genuine joy and great sadness. I did not write a diplomatic history or a history of foreign affairs in his life. I wanted the reader to walk through his life and see it with his eyes.” "It takes a certain amount of egotism for a biographer to think he has something new to add to the record, and I believe I do."
Berg hesitated before writing the biography. "Yet I'd been afraid of writing about him all my life because I held him so high and he was so overwhelming a figure."
Berg visited many of Wilson's homes during his research, including his birthplace, his childhood homes and the Woodrow Wilson House in Washington, D.C. "Getting a sense of place is extremely important to me as a biographer. And I make a point, as I have in all of my books, to visit as many of the places in the lives of my subjects as possible."
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