A prominent topic that economics students anywhere cannot avoid is market failure. Students everywhere are taught that the free market is inherently unstable and causes problems that can only be fixed through legislation and regulation. As a result, most of those who take an economics class come out of it believing that the state helps counter the shortcomings of the free market.

Woodrow Wilson is no longer the left-wing icon he once was owing to his role in promoting segregation in federal employment, and this revised view is much evidenced in Corey Brettschneider’s work “The Presidents and the People.” Those of us already inclined to a negative view of Wilson will find much of value in the book.