The roots of this nation’s Progressive Movement were racist, repressive, dismissive of the First Amendment and other civil liberties, and hostile to women’s rights to vote or to petition elected officials.

Those are key takeaways, some of them relevant to this year’s election, from a Pulitzer Prize-worthy new history about former President Woodrow Wilson, whose presidency was the apotheosis of the early Progressive Movement’s fierce ambitions. Written by Christopher Cox, a former congressman who served as the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission from 2005 to 2009, the book is elegantly written and monumentally impressive in its research.