Howard Zinn at Truthout is “dismayed” that U.S. president Barack Obama has won the Nobel Prize for Peace:

A shock, really, to think that a president carrying on wars in two countries and launching military action in a third country (Pakistan), would be given a peace prize. But then I recalled that Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Kissinger had all received Nobel Peace Prizes. The Nobel Committee is famous for its superficial estimates and for its susceptibility to rhetoric and empty gestures, while ignoring blatant violations of world peace.

As Zinn notes, Obama isn’t the first U.S. president to win the prize, nor is he the first one to stir debate over his win. Cosimo Classics by previous U.S. presidential Nobel Peace Prize winners:

WOODROW WILSON (Nobel Prize for Peace 1919)

A History of the American People, in five volumes: Before he served as the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921, Thomas Woodrow Wilson was a lawyer and an academic: a university professor of history and politics, and president of Princeton University. It was during his tenure at Princeton that he penned this five-volume history of the United States, and it reflects many of the biases he later brought to national politics, from racial prejudice to anti-immigration attitudes. This beautiful replica of the 1902 first edition features all the original halftone illustrations. Students of Wilson and of the ever-changing lens through which history is told and retold will find this an enlightening and illuminating work.

On Being Human: The mark of a great book is one that is meant to be read with pleasure. Written in a conversational manner that was his trademark as an author, this work is meant not only to be read but also to be pondered thoroughly. It instructs and informs, startles and provokes, arouses and amuses the reader with a keen enthusiasm for seeing and taking pleasure in the affairs of the world.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT (Nobel Prize for Peace 1906)

America and the World War: Theodore Roosevelt was still a young man when he left the Oval Office, and he remained a vigorous force on the American scene. The great influence he continued to hold over the public allowed him to contest the policies of President Woodrow Wilson, particularly Wilson’s conduct in the leadup to America’s belated entry into World War I. In this 1915 work, Roosevelt lays out the moral and political case for coming to the aid of the nation’s European allies, from the ethics of self-defense to the practicalities of preparing for war. Roosevelt’s arguments are compelling and humane, but agree with him or not, here is an essential part of the powerful basis for his place in American history as the architect of the American Century, as well as a revealing picture of the character of one of the great American personalities.

Click here for more Cosimo Classics by Roosevelt.