Ronald J. Pestritto is Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution at Hillsdale College and a research fellow at the Claremont Institute.

The 'Era of Big Government'—and the idea that the national government ought to be adequate to any task the people ask of it—did not creep up on America unaware. It was a deliberate project, grounded in a critique of the original Constitution, bolstered by a new political science, and guided by a thorough-going confidence in historical progress. With clarity, conviction, and plenty of evidence, R. J. Pestritto shows that, from his early days as a political scientist through his election to the presidency, Woodrow Wilson was consistently a central figure in the development of Progressivism and so of the Liberalism that dominated twentieth-century American public policy and political life. Though Wilson was no philosopher-king, Pestritto explains that our doctor-of-philosophy-president changed how we think about democracy and about America, in ways that ought to be reappraised but have yet to be undone.

• Introduction: Wilson, the Founding, and Historical ThinkingChapter 1: Historicism and Wilson's Critique of the Social CompactChapter 2: The Modern Democratic State and the New Political ScienceChapter 3: Beyond the Separation of Powers: The New Constitutionalism and the Growth of the American National StateChapter 4: Congress as Parliament?Chapter 5: The Presidency, the Parties, and the JudiciaryChapter 6: Who Governs? Wilson's Leadership Doctrine and the Question of DemocracyChapter 7: Wilson's Science of AdministrationConclusion: 1912 and Beyond

Ronald J. Pestritto is Charles and Lucia Shipley Chair in the American Constitution at Hillsdale College and a research fellow at the Claremont Institute.

The 'Era of Big Government'—and the idea that the national government ought to be adequate to any task the people ask of it—did not creep up on America unaware. It was a deliberate project, grounded in a critique of the original Constitution, bolstered by a new political science, and guided by a thorough-going confidence in historical progress. With clarity, conviction, and plenty of evidence, R. J. Pestritto shows that, from his early days as a political scientist through his election to the presidency, Woodrow Wilson was consistently a central figure in the development of Progressivism and so of the Liberalism that dominated twentieth-century American public policy and political life. Though Wilson was no philosopher-king, Pestritto explains that our doctor-of-philosophy-president changed how we think about democracy and about America, in ways that ought to be reappraised but have yet to be undone.

• Introduction: Wilson, the Founding, and Historical ThinkingChapter 1: Historicism and Wilson's Critique of the Social CompactChapter 2: The Modern Democratic State and the New Political ScienceChapter 3: Beyond the Separation of Powers: The New Constitutionalism and the Growth of the American National StateChapter 4: Congress as Parliament?Chapter 5: The Presidency, the Parties, and the JudiciaryChapter 6: Who Governs? Wilson's Leadership Doctrine and the Question of DemocracyChapter 7: Wilson's Science of AdministrationConclusion: 1912 and Beyond