The point of this book is that being Scottish is more than just a matter of nationality or place of origin or clan or even culture. It is also a stat… - Arthur Herman

There was Wilson's overweening spiritual arrogance, which Nicolson saw as part of the president's Presbyterian inheritance. There was Wilson's thin-skinned response to the slightest criticism or opposition, but above all, there was, as Wilson himself admitted, the American president's "one-track mind."

Americans couldn't go to war: with 1.3 million German immigrants living in the United States, Zimmermann was fond of pointing out, plus another 10 million Americans of German descent, any military move against Germany would trigger a national uprising

If there is any single lesson to be drawn from this book, it is that utopian dreamers in power tend to breed disaster. But not always, and not forever.