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The Millennium and the Madhouse: Institution and Intervention in Woodrow Wilson's Progressive Statecraft

Phillips, Matthew Todd

Abstract Details

2011, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History.
Woodrow Wilson was a Christian anarchist who oftentimes used force and division as tools to help create transcendent national and global communities. This dissertation uses a combination of cultural and intellectual methodologies to crack Wilson’s riddle by first disentangling his progressive ideology and then dissecting the way in which he applied it, at a fundamental level, to his foreign and domestic foreign policymaking. By paying close attention to the writings, speeches, and lessons from his academic career, the dissertation first lays out the unique progressive ideology that Wilson constructed, a sort of management framework for society that would point mankind toward a future of practicable anarchy where people would be guided by the spirit of altruism rather than the compulsion of institutional law. From there, the dissertation then analyzes the way in which Wilson used his progressive ideology as a filter through which to interpret and act upon the major issues confronting him while in office—war, revolution, race, gender, class, etc. Throughout, the dissertation makes clear that Wilson understood the mechanisms of the world as operating holistically, seeing all the issues of his day as interconnected—from the League of Nations and war with Germany to the sterilization of the “feeble-minded” and even the creation of Mother’s Day. The organization of the dissertation, in turn, reflects Wilson’s view by providing an integrated explanation of his thought and policies, illustrating the nuanced way that he treated social theory, theology, race, gender, class, and disability. Ultimately, it explains how he rearticulated the way that American power would work, leading him to various Latin American interventions, a recalibration of American Empire (including the Philippines and Native America), regional and global institutionalism, war with Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany, interventions in newly Bolshevik Russia, and even early discussions with representatives from the Ethiopian Empire. While studies of Wilson and his policymaking are not exactly rare and most provide solid historiographical contributions, this dissertation’s employment of perception analysis provides a unique clarity and explanatory power that brings together seemingly disparate aspects of his years in office and resolves many of his seeming paradoxes. More broadly, it speaks to the connection between ideals and the use of force in U.S. foreign relations.
Mary Ann Heiss (Advisor)
Walter Hixson (Committee Member)
Clarence Wunderlin, Jr. (Committee Member)
Elizabeth Smith-Pryor (Committee Member)
Richard Feinberg (Committee Member)
Andrew Barnes (Committee Member)
394 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Phillips, M. T. (2011). The Millennium and the Madhouse: Institution and Intervention in Woodrow Wilson's Progressive Statecraft [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1310738105

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Phillips, Matthew. The Millennium and the Madhouse: Institution and Intervention in Woodrow Wilson's Progressive Statecraft. 2011. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1310738105.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Phillips, Matthew. "The Millennium and the Madhouse: Institution and Intervention in Woodrow Wilson's Progressive Statecraft." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1310738105

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)