Making Good on the Great War: Woodrow Wilson and the Decision to Take the United States into WWI

One hundred years ago, President Woodrow Wilson faced a monumental dilemma about how to respond to the war in Europe, which had been raging for more than two years.  In this illustrated talk at the Dover Public Library on Monday September 25 at 7pm, Kurk Dorsey, Professor of History at UNH and a specialist on US foreign policy, will describe how Wilson tried to make something good from the Great War, first by trying to mediate a peace without victory and then by choosing to intervene in the war on the Allied side.  His decisions continue to reverberate today, as the United States tries to figure how and whether to, among other things, make the world safe for democracy.

Kurk Dorsey holds the Class of 1938 Professorship at UNH, where he has taught History since 1994.  His research interests include US foreign policy, and US environmental history.  He is the author of The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: US-Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era and Whales and Nations: Environmental Diplomacy on the High Seas.