The Madman in the White House - Patrick Weil

Shortlist, Cundill History Prize“The extraordinary untold story of how a disillusioned American diplomat named William C. Bullitt came to Freud’s couch in 1926, and how Freud and his patient collaborated on a psychobiography of President Woodrow Wilson.” —Wall Street Journal“A vivid shaggy-dog story about a curio that illuminates the possibilities (and perils) of studying the psychological soundness of presidents—a discipline as relevant as ever.” —The Atlantic“Excellent…Nearly a century since Wilson’s death, Weil’s monograph is the first to offer a comprehensive historical account of Bullitt’s career-long engagement with Wilson.” —American Literary HistoryWhen the fate of millions rests on the decisions of a mentally compromised leader, what can one person do? Alarmed by President Woodrow Wilson’s irrational handling of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, a US diplomat named William C. Bullitt asked this very question. With the help of his friend Sigmund Freud—and the cooperation of interviewees in Wilson’s inner circle—Bullitt set out to write a psychological biography of a troubled president. In The Madman in the White House, Patrick Weil resurrects this forgotten portrait. The manuscript was completed in 1932, but the book was not published until 1966, in a heavily redacted edition. By that time, the mystique of psychoanalysis had waned and Wilso
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