William Howard Taft: Confident Peacemaker

by David H. Burton

Overview

This book is a study of the internationalism of William Howard Taft. In the months after war broke out in 1914, Taft was second only to Woodrow Wilson in his awareness of the need to preserve the peace of the world through a new version of international organization. Built upon a synthetic interpretation of Taft’s foreign policy ideas and initiatives, the book encompasses the whole of his public career as a statesman, from his years as civil governor of the Philippines through his tenure as chief justice of the Supreme Court. During those years, he moved from a basic belief in the theory and practice of balance of power to the application of dollar diplomacy. In response to the calamity of World War I, Taft came to recognize that world peace must be based upon a combination of idealism and realism, of high-minded principles placed and kept in effect by force, deliberately chosen and carefully applied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780916101503
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2004
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

David H. Burton is Professor of History at St. Joseph's University. He is author of several biographies and books on American intellectual history including Political Ideas of Justice Holmes.

Editorial Reviews

Burton (emer., Saint Joseph's Univ.) contributes a relatively brief, succinct account of Taft's contributions to international peace. The work traces Taft's pre-presidential roles as governor of the Philippines, mediator in Cuba, and negotiator with Japan; presidential activities such as his "Dollar Diplomacy," efforts to achieve reciprocal trade with Canada, fostering of arbitration treaties, and cautious response to the early Mexican revolution; and his wartime leadership of the internationalist body, the League to Enforce Peace. The 45 pages of appendixes of treaties and speeches include one document, the Root-Takahira Agreement of 1908, with which Taft had nothing to do. Burton draws heavily upon published secondary works and his own edited Collected Works of William Howard Taft (2001-03). While he is to be commended for offering fresh appreciation of a president still far too neglected, his book is no substitute for such detailed works as Paolo E. Coletta's The Presidency of William Howard Taft (CH, Nov'73); Walter and Marie Scholes's The Foreign Policies of the Taft Administration (1970); and Ralph E. Minger's William Howard Taft and United States Foreign Policy: The Apprentice Years, 1900-1908 (CH, Jan'76). Summing Up: Recommended. Libraries seeking complete collections on US presidents, upper-division undergraduates and above.

Choice