Professional Affiliation

Former Executive Director, President Woodrow Wilson House

Expert Bio

Robert A. Enholm is a knowledgeable and keen observer of politics, diplomacy, economics, society, and history. Enholm served for four years as the Executive Director of the President Woodrow Wilson House, a historic house museum and a site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, located in the Dupont Circle home to which President and Mrs. Wilson moved upon leaving the White House in 1921. Previously Enholm served at the United Nations in New York in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as Chief of the Central Emergency Response Fund Secretariat, helping to establish a $500 million international humanitarian relief fund. Enholm enjoyed a career as an international corporate lawyer, including as general counsel of two publicly traded corporations and as a partner in two major law firms. He received his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley and his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis.

Wilson Center Project

The Woodrow Wilson Era: Lessons for Modern Times

Project Summary

The Wilson Center was established by Congress in 1968 as a national presidential memorial honoring Woodrow Wilson.  Enholm will, among other things, contribute to the "memorial" aspects of the Wilson Center, interpreting the history of the Wilson era to illuminate and invite discussion regarding social, economic and political lessons for our modern times.

Woodrow Wilson revolutionized the role of the presidency in the federal government, the role of the federal government in America, and the role of America in the world. The history of Woodrow Wilson's era offers important lessons in matters including the conduct of war and international diplomacy, the rights and roles of women, the consequences of the failure to embrace ethnic and racial minorities, and the preservation of social norms in times of cultural and technological upheaval. Woodrow Wilson's administration witnessed the First World War, the founding of the League of Nations, the adoption of Constitutional Amendments granting women the right to vote and establishing Prohibition, and the popularization of the automobile, abstract art, "moving pictures," and Einstein's physics.

Major Publications

Enholm and Daugherty, "Historic Preservation: Protecting That Which Endures," preface to exhibition catalogue "War & Art: Destruction and Protection of Italian Cultural Heritage during World War I" (2014).

Enholm (Principal Editor), "U.S. Engagement in International Peacekeeping: From Aspiration to Implementation" (Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping, 2011).

Enholm, "Imaging Global Justice," book review of THE IDEA OF JUSTICE by Amartya Sen, in MINERVA, Vol. 36 (April 2010).

Enholm (Editor), "Faithful Against Torture" (Citizens for Global Solutions, 2009).