The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson

The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson - Paperback

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The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson
  • The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson
The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson - Paperback

The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson - Paperback

by Patrick Weil
$24.95
$24.95

Book Overview

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 History

When 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 Wilson's legacy was unassailable. Critics panned the book, and Freud's descendants denied his involvement. But in 2014, Weil discovered the original manuscript, which leaves no doubt as to Freud's role--or the significance of Bullitt and Freud's analysis. Reassessing the notorious psychobiography, Weil finds a powerful warning about the influence a single unbalanced personality can have on the course of history.
ISBN9780674301597
Author Patrick Weil
PublisherHarvard University Press
GenreNews & politics and History
FormatPaperback
PublishedOctober 2025
LanguageENG- English
Pages400
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

History Nonfiction Political Science Wars & Conflicts

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About Patrick Weil

Patrick Weil is Senior Research Fellow at the National Center for Scientific Research (University of Paris, Sorbonne) and a professor at the Paris School of Economics. The author of many books, he was a member of France's Governmental Advisory Council on Integration from 1996 to 2002, and a member of the Presidential Commission created by President Jacques Chirac on the "implementation of the principle of secularism within the French Republic" in 2003. In 1997, following a request from Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, he produced two influential reports on nationality and immigration legislation. Under its original title, Qu'est-ce qu-un Français, How to Be French won the François Furet prize. Catherine Porter, Professor Emeritus in the Foreign Languages Department at the State University of New York, Cortland, won the Chevalier d'Or des Palmes Académiques for advancing Franco-American relations through translation and teaching.

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