Understanding Woodrow Wilson's approach to international relations requires acknowledgment of his Protestant faith. In Statecraft and Salvation, Milan Babík delivers a fresh analysis of Wilson's progressive international political thought by examining it within the broader context of the American liberal tradition. The progressive belief that the world in general, and Europe in particular, could achieve peace carried with it a secular hope and a Christian eschatological vision for the future. Babík contends that the ultimate result of this belief devolved to serve a more totalitarian agenda. Statecraft and Salvation traces Wilson's "New Democracy" to liberal internationalism as an effort distinctly shaped by his faith.

Milan Babík

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

The Two Utopianisms: Wilsonian Liberal Internationalism vs. Secularized Eschatology

1 From Providence to Progress

Secularization Theory

2 Secularization and Totalitarian Movements

Probing the Limits of the Concept

3 The Eschatological Origins of the American Republic

Millennialism in Colonial America

4 "Manifest Destiny"

Secularized Eschatology in the Nineteenth-Century United States

5 The (Not So) Conservative Millennialist

Woodrow Wilson and History as Orderly Progress
Toward Liberty

6 "To Release Mankind from the Intolerable Things of the Past"

Wilson's Wartime Statecraft as a Mission to Redeem the World

Conclusion

(Re)Integrating the Two Utopianisms: Wilsonian Liberal Internationalism as Secularized Eschatology

Bibliography

Index