Jim Powell, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and World War II, discusses how US entry into WWI broke a three year stalemate and gave the allied forces a decisive victory, how the punitive Treaty of Versailles and crippling hyperinflation from war reparations provoked a defiant German nationalist reaction creating an environment receptive to Hitler’s rise to power, Woodrow Wilson’s arrogant creation of new national boundaries that are still sources of conflict today,how disparate cultures newly lumped together fighting for control over public schools can be seen as a microcosm of inherently problematic centralized government, how Wilson dissuaded Russia from negotiating a ceasefire with Germany – enabling Lenin and the Bolsheviks to seize power while the Russian army collapsed and why government power is inversely related to its functionality.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:50 — 6.4MB)