In this fourth installment in the epic DHP Villains Woodrow Wilson series, we’re detail-stripping what CJ considers to be perhaps the single most important piece of writing in Woodrow Wilson’s career, the essay “The Study of Administration,” which was published in the July 1887 issue of Political Science Quarterly, when Wilson was only 30 years old and just 2 years into his professional academic career. Wilson never significantly deviated from the ideas laid down in this essay over the remainder of his academic career; he also did quite a lot of implement them as President of the United States, and one can see the influence of these ideas on the growth & development of the US government’s administrative apparatus ever since. (Though the real-world results have been far from the ideal of benevolence, efficiency, and transparency that Wilson described!)

Join CJ as he takes this essay apart with critical analysis, and, near the end, shares the insights of Alexis de Tocqueville who, writing approximately 50 years before Wilson wrote “The Study of Administration,” identified and warned about just the sort of mixture of democracy and bureaucratic despotism that men like Wilson would eventually advocate & usher in.

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CJ’s official DHP Amazon Wish List

Other ways to support the show

The Dangerous History Podcast is a member of the Recorded History Podcast Network, the Dark Myths Podcast Collective & LRN.fm’s podcast roster.

External Links

• “The Study of Administration” by Woodrow Wilson

CJ’s Picks: Amazon Affiliate Links

Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism (American Intellectual Culture) by Ronald J. Pestritto

Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings: The Essential Political Writings edited by Ronald J. Pestritto

Propaganda by Edward Bernays

Public Opinion (Critical Assessment of Functional Democratic Government) by Walter Lipmann

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward Herman & Noam Chomsky

Democracy in America: The Complete and Unabridged Volumes I and II (Bantam Classics) by Alexis de Tocqueville

In this third instalment in the DHP coverage of Woodrow Wilson, we focus on Wilson’s years as President of Princeton University, 1902-1910.

Join CJ as he discusses:

• The changes and reforms Wilson implemented at Princeton, and others he tried (but failed) to implement
• His increasingly contentious relationship with some of the trustees, alumni, and administrators, particularly regarding his Quad Plan and the location of the Graduate School
• A possible affair with Mrs. Mary Allen Peck

Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon, SubscribeStar, or Bitbacker.

CJ’s official DHP Amazon Wish List

Other ways to support the show

The Dangerous History Podcast is a member of the Recorded History Podcast Network, the Dark Myths Podcast Collective & LRN.fm’s podcast roster.

CJ’s Picks: Amazon Affiliate Links

Mr. Wilson’s War: From the Assassination of Mckinley to the Defeat of the League of Nations by John Dos Passos

Wilson by A. Scott Berg

Woodrow Wilson: A Biography by John Milton Cooper, Jr.

Woodrow Wilson by H. W. Brands

The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made by Patricia O’Toole

Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, and World War II by Jim Powell

Over Here: The First World War and American Society by David Kennedy

Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism (American Intellectual Culture) by Ronald J. Pestritto

Woodrow Wilson: The Essential Political Writings: The Essential Political Writings edited by Ronald J. Pestritto

Finally, after a LONG time of researching, planning, etc, here it is, the first installment in CJ’s DHP Villains hit-piece on The Worst President (So Far!) in US History, Woodrow Wilson. (And that’s no small matter considering how badly CJ thinks of most American presidents!)

In this first installment, we’re covering Wilson’s early life & education, stopping just before his entry into the Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University in the fall of 1883.

Support the Dangerous History Podcast via Patreon or SubscribeStar.

CJ’s official DHP Amazon Wish List