Although later compelled to declare war, Wilson never changed his objective. Other nations, he believed, would necessarily shuffle along in an international “chain gang,” possessing the trappings but not the substance of sovereignty.
That felicitous combination would at once maintain the peace and perpetuate American advantage. His formulary included industrial pre-eminence, preferential finance, an Open Door policy for trade everywhere, and a backward-looking presumption of white supremacy. Wilson, he claims, aspired to global hegemony not militarily, as did Wilhelmine Germany, but through the imposition of a capitalist new order. He considers the president a hyper-nationalist, a hypocrite and a covert imperialist intoxicated by his own rhetoric.
Tooze stands unmoved by the conventions of Wilson hagiography still prevalent in the academy. An Englishman who holds a chair at Yale, Mr.
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