Past & Present

I was fortunate to receive a thoughtful message from a student named Kurt after a class session that covered the aftermath of World War I. The class featured a 10-minute snip from the documentary “The Century” that ABC News produced when the calendar struck 2000. This documentary did a slick job of discussing the Versailles peace talks in 1919.

The one historian in the film we watched [this was David Fromkin, who I believe is at Boston University. I don't know him, but in this film he comes off as petulant] stated that WWI did not in fact fully end until 1994 when the Russian/Soviet troops finally left their occupied countries. I have long thought WWI led to WWII but using the historian’s logic could you not argue that WWI is still going on today with the wars in the Middle East that are at least partly due to border disputes and the seperation of ethnicities and religious sects? North Korea is also still a threat to international security, is that not a holdover from the Cold War which this guy thinks was a continuation of WWI?

Woodrow Wilson seems to be a very good man; from what I have heard I like the guy. But in a way is he not somewhat the same as George W. Bush? People accuse Bush of being so headstrong and stubborn that he is blinded by reality. Wilson although some would say his goals are much different and much more noble seems to have a somewhat similar attitude. He believed so strongly in what could almost be deemed a perfect world that he left everyone else behind. He did not include the U.S. congress in his discussion of the Treaty of Versailes (just like Bush seemed to keep Congress out of the loop on some things) and he also in a way left Europe out of the negotians of the Treaty (or they left him out) just as Bush left the UN and NATO out when it came to the Iraq War. I think Wilson was indeed a very noble man and rather like the guy but when there are historians that argue that he “only made good speeches” I think that could certainly be seen as a logical viewpoint.

I eagerly accept comments, so those with a different take on presidents Bush or Wilson please have at it.