An instrumental figure in the United States’s transition from an isolated economic power to a world power, Wilson’s legacy as a whole cannot be overlooked. Woodrow Wilson dedicated his political career to spreading America’s democratic ideals and institutions to parts the world over, and advocated on the behalf of a great many people still trapped in the oppressive confines of an obsolete world order. Wilson envisioned a larger role for the United States that went beyond mere economics, and dared the American people to becomes vessels of democracy, liberty, freedom for those lacking it. Throughout his long and remarkable career, Wilson challenged the norms and principles of reactionary and conservative politics, be it at Princeton, where he
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The contents of his Fourteen Points described a world in which secrecy among nations would be near non-existent, free trade would rule the seas, former territories of fallen empires would be allowed to vote on the issue of self-determination, and a League of Nations would oversee the redrawing of the map of Europe. At the Paris Peace Conference Wilson vilified the military alliances that had caused the outbreak of war in 1914, and sought to avoid territorial agreements like Sykes-Picot, which had betrayed the trust of the Arab people with the dividing of the Middle East between France and Great Britain, so that a “peace without victory” could be established in the aftermath of World War I. Through collective security, Wilson protested, war would be for the most part deterred among the European nations under the threat of the preponderous amount of force allowed in retaliation against an external aggressor. The League of Nations would enforce collective security in order to ensure that the territorial integrity and political sovereignty of all nations were respected, and that smaller nations were under no immediate threat of invasion or intimidation by a foreign
The contents of his Fourteen Points described a world in which secrecy among nations would be near non-existent, free trade would rule the seas, former territories of fallen empires would be allowed to vote on the issue of self-determination, and a League of Nations would oversee the redrawing of the map of Europe. At the Paris Peace Conference Wilson vilified the military alliances that had caused the outbreak of war in 1914, and sought to avoid territorial agreements like Sykes-Picot, which had betrayed the trust of the Arab people with the dividing of the Middle East between France and Great Britain, so that a “peace without victory” could be established in the aftermath of World War I. Through collective security, Wilson protested, war would be for the most part deterred among the European nations under the threat of the preponderous amount of force allowed in retaliation against an external aggressor. The League of Nations would enforce collective security in order to ensure that the territorial integrity and political sovereignty of all nations were respected, and that smaller nations were under no immediate threat of invasion or intimidation by a foreign