Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

Strategic Alliances for a Secure, Connected, and Prosperous Region

Menu

The Jewish Experience as an Influence on Hans J. Morganthau’s Realism

April 4, 2000

Hans J. Morgenthau was probably the foremost exponent of the school of political realism in the academic discipline of international relations in the United States and has left a permanent imprint on the thinking of both theoreticians and practitioners in the field. A product of a European education, he fled Nazi Germany for the U.S. during the Hitler years, and had a distinguished career at the University of Chicago and the City University of New York. This article explores certain little known aspects of the Jewish experience which affected him such as the impact of searing anti-Semitism, and his subsequent activism in Jewish causes. It argues, based on a comparison and analysis of both Jewish and general writings, that the Jewish experience influenced Morgenthau's "realist" worldview in terms of a disillusionment with enlightenment expectations of harmony and progress, and accentuated his appreciation of the power phenomenon human relations.

Power and Spirituality in the Thought of Hans J. Morgenthau

April 20, 1998

Hans J. Morgenthau's legacy has been undergoing a scholarly reevaluation. From an earlier perception of Morgenthau as a one-dimensional advocate of pure realpolitik, more recent scholarly literature has been emphasizing significant transcendent themes in Morgenthau's thought, that reflect his concerns relating to the importance of morality in state craft, man's philosophic quest, and even spirituality. Drawing on his teaching, unpublished works, and lesser known published works, this work contends that Morgenthau had significant spiritual concerns that under lined his assumptions about man's behavior in the political realm, upon which his understanding of international behavior was ultimately based.