Hans Morgenthau

Hans Morgenthau
Morgenthau in 1963
Born	Hans Joachim Morgenthau February 17, 1904 Coburg, Germany
Died	July 19, 1980(1980-07-19) (aged 76) New York
Nationality	German-American

Hans Joachim Morgenthau (February 17, 1904 – July 19, 1980) was one of the leading twentieth-century figures in the study of international politics. He made landmark contributions to international relations theory and the study of international law, and his Politics Among Nations, first published in 1948, went through five editions during his lifetime.

Morgenthau also wrote widely about international politics and U.S. foreign policy for general-circulation publications such as The New Leader, Commentary, Worldview, The New York Review of Books, and The New Republic. He knew and corresponded with many of the leading intellectuals and writers of his era, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, George F. Kennan, and Hannah Arendt. At one point in the early Cold War, Morgenthau was a consultant to the U.S. Department of State when Kennan headed its Policy Planning Staff, and a second time during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations until he was dismissed when he began to publicly express his position of dissent concerning American involvement in Vietnam. For most of his career, however, Morgenthau was esteemed as an academic interpreter of U.S. foreign policy.

Life

Morgenthau was born in an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Coburg, Germany in 1904, and, after attending Casimirianum, was educated at the universities of Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, and pursued postgraduate work at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. While still a student, Morgenthau was influenced by one of his professors, Prof. Sitzheimer, who was a dedicated Weberian scholar in allowing Morgenthau to adopt one of his preferred methodological preferences. He taught and practiced law in Frankfurt before emigrating to the United States in 1937, after several interim years in Switzerland and Spain. Morgenthau taught for many years at the University of Chicago until 1973.

Throughout his life, Morgenthau maintained a reputation as being a highly dedicated and loyal supporter of colleagues and friends. When his then student, Tang Tsou (d. 12 August 1999), at the University of Chicago was challenged by the Department of Immigration concerning his papers, Morgenthau rushed to his assistance, and Tsou would eventually become a respected member of the faculty at the University of Chicago himself. When his son became involved in dissent against the U.S. Army, Morgenthau was central in retaining adequate legal counsel to support his son. In 1975, when his close colleague Hannah Arendt died, Morgenthau wrote a moving memorial notice for her in the press which would recognize her importance to him.

In 1973 he moved to New York and separated from his wife who remained in Chicago partly due to medical issues. He is reported twice to have tried to initiate plans to start a new family while in New York, once with the political philosopher Hannah Arendt as documented by her biographer, and, a second time with Ethel Person (d. 2012), a medical professor at Columbia University when she was between marriages as she documents this in her essay for the Morgenthau Centenary in 2004. Following 1973 and until the end of his career he taught at the New School for Social Research and the City University of New York.

On October 8, 1979, Morgenthau was one of the passengers on board Swissair Flight 316, which crashed while trying to land at Athens-Ellinikon International Airport, while he was en route on a flight destined for Bombay and Peking.

Morgenthau died after a brief hospitalization on July 19, 1980, after being admitted with a grave diagnosis of a perforated ulcer at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York according to the account recorded by Ethel Person. He was survived by his two children, Matthew and Susanna, living in the United States.

Morgenthau in his European Years and Functional Jurisprudence

Morgenthau completed his doctoral dissertation in Germany in the late 1920s which was published in 1929 as his first book entitled, The International Administration of Justice, Its Essence and Its Limits. Following its publication his book received a published review written by Carl Schmitt who was then a jurist teaching at the University of Berlin. Morgenthau relates in his autobiographical writings that despite initially anticipating meeting Schmitt while on a visit to Berlin, the meeting went horribly astray and Morgenthau left his one and only meeting with Schmitt thinking that he had been in the presence of, in his own words, "the demonic." Although such strong wording would normally be guarded in scholarly reception, Morgenthau stated it in his autobiographical writings written near the end of his life in 1980 after nearly fifty years of hindsight and reflection (see Notes below). By the late 1920s Schmitt was becoming the leading jurist for the rising National Socialist movement in Germany and Morgenthau came to see their positions as irreconcilable.

Following this, Morgenthau departed from Germany to complete his Habilitation dissertation (licence to teach at Universities) in Geneva which resulted in his first book written in French being published entitled, The Reality of Norms and in Particular the Norms of International Law: Foundations of a Theory of Norms. By remarkable good fortune Hans Kelsen had also just arrived in Geneva as a Professor and became an adviser to Morgenthau's dissertation. Kelsen was among the strongest critics of Carl Schmitt because Schmitt was advocating for the priority of the political concerns of the state over the adherence by the state to the rule of law. Morgenthau and Kelsen were united against this National Socialist school of political interpretation which down-played the rule of law, and they became lifelong colleagues even after both had emigrated from Europe to take their respective academic positions in the United States.

In 1933, Morgenthau wrote a second short book in French titled The Concept of the Political which was translated into English in 2012. In this book Morgenthau sought to articulate the difference between legal disputes between nations and political disputes between nations or other litigants. For Morgenthau in this book there are four introductory questions which drive this inquiry; (i) Who holds legal power over any of the given objects or concerns being disputed, (ii) In what manner can the holder of this legal power be changed or held accountable; (iii) How can a dispute, the object of which concerns a legal power, be resolved; and (iv) Finally, in what manner will the holder of the legal power be protected in the course of excerizing this power. The end goal of any legal system in this context for Morgenthau is to "ensure justice and peace," always based on the legal principle of rebus sic stantibus, that is, that the standing law must be respected and deferred to.

Morgenthau sought in the 1920s and 1930s a realist alternative to mainstream international law, a quest for "functional jurisprudence". He borrowed ideas from Sigmund Freud, Max Weber, Roscoe Pound and others. Specifically regarding Freud, Morgenthau would later only return to him in his 1946 book on science, and again in 1977 in a co-authored essay with Ethel Person.

Morgenthau in his American Years and Political Realism

Hans Morgenthau is considered one of the "founding fathers" of the realist school in the 20th century. This school of thought holds that nation-states are the main actors in international relations and that the main concern of the field is the study of power. Morgenthau emphasized the importance of "the national interest", and in Politics Among Nations he wrote that "the main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the landscape of international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power".

American Years Up To Politics Among Nations (1948)

In 1940 Morgenthau set out a research program for legal functionalism in the article "Positivism, Functionalism, and International Law". As later manifested in his book Politics Among Nations from 1948 Morgenthau started to enhance the functionalist program as he began to expand his perspective on international law after the Second World War. Francis Boyle has offered the opinion that Morgenthau's post-war writings had perhaps partially contributed towards a "break between international political science and international legal studies". Morgenthau did, however, maintain a separate constructive chapter on the subject of "International Law" in his book, Politics Among Nations, throughout its five editions between 1948 and his death in 1980.

Recent scholarly assessments of Morgenthau show that his intellectual trajectory was more complicated than originally thought. His realism was infused with moral considerations, and during the last part of his life he favored supranational control of nuclear weapons and strongly opposed the U.S. role in the Vietnam War. His book Scientific Man versus Power Politics (1946) argued against an overreliance on science and technology as solutions to political and social problems.

Starting with the second edition of Politics Among Nations, Morgenthau included a section in the opening chapter called "Six Principles of Political Realism".

The principles, paraphrased, are:

1. Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.
2. The main signpost of political realism is the concept of interest defined in terms of power, which infuses rational order into the subject matter of politics, and thus makes the theoretical understanding of politics possible. Political realism avoids concerns with the motives and ideology of statesmen. Political realism avoids reinterpreting reality to fit the policy. A good foreign policy minimizes risks and maximizes benefits.
3. Realism recognizes that the determining kind of interest varies depending on the political and cultural context in which foreign policy is made. It does not give "interest defined as power" a meaning that is fixed once and for all.
4. Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action. Realism maintains that universal moral principles must be filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place, because they cannot be applied to the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation.
5. Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral laws that govern the universe.
6. The political realist maintains the autonomy of the political sphere; he asks "How does this policy affect the power and interests of the nation?" Political realism is based on a pluralistic conception of human nature. The political realist must show where the nation's interests differ from the moralistic and legalistic viewpoints.

American Years After Politics Among Nations (1948) Up To 1965

Morgenthau was a strong supporter of the Roosevelt and Truman administrations from the war years. When the Eisenhower administration gained the White House, Morgenthau turned his efforts towards a large amount of writing for journals and the press in general. By the time of the Kennedy elections, he had become a consultant to the Kennedy administration until Kennedy's death. When the Johnson administration took control, Morgenthau became much more vocal in his dissent concerning American participation in the Viet-Nam war, for which he was dismissed as a consultant to the Johnson administration in 1965. This debate with Morgenthau has been related in the memoirs of both policy advisors McGeorge Bundy and Walt Rostow, as well as in the biography on McGeorge Bundy by Kai Bird.

Aside from his writing of Politics Among Nations, Morgenthau continued with a prolific writing career and published the three volume collection of his wrtings in 1962. Volume One was entitled The Decline of Democratic Politics, Volume Two was The Impasse of American Politics, and Volume Three was The Restoration of American Politics. Each of these volumes itself was the approximate size of his magnum opus of Politics Among Nations and remains a reminder of his vast activities after the end of World War Two.

Morgenthau is sometimes referred to as a classical realist in order to differentiate his approach from the structural realism or neo-realism associated with Kenneth Waltz. When neorealism came under increasing criticism in the 1990s, a revival of interest in Moregenthau occurred, most recently seen in the writings of Martti Koskeniemmi in his book on Lauterpacht and Oliver Jutersonke in his essay about Morgenthau.

Morgenthau in his American Years After 1965

Morgenthau's notable book Truth and Power was published in 1970, in which he recalled his dissent towards the Vietnam war, and his significant contributions to the political debate in the United States largely after 1960 at both the domestic and international level. It was dedicated by Morgenthau to Hans Kelsen "who has taught us through his example how to speak Truth to Power." His last major book was dedicated to his colleague Reinhold Niebuhr and was entitled Science: Servant or Master, in 1972. The exact dates of when Morgenthau actually wrote his manuscript on Abraham Lincoln are unknown though it was published posthumously in 1983 together with a separate text by another author (see Bibliography below.)

In the Summer of 1978, Morgenthau wrote his last co-authored essay titled "The Roots of Narcissism," with Ethel Person of Columbia University. This essay was a continuation of Morgenthau's earlier study of this subject in his 1962 essay titled "Public Affairs: Love and Power," where Morgenthau engaged some of the prominent themes which Niebuhr and Tillich were struggling with at that time in their respective academic positions in New York City. More recently, Anthony Lang has managed to recover and have published one of Morgenthau's extensive course notes lectures on Aristotle as a stand-alone book on this subject which Morgenthau taught while at the New School for Social Research during his New York years. The comparison of Morgenthau to Aristotle has been further explored by Molloy in his recent essay on Aristotle and Epicurus.

Reception—Critics—Reaction

There were three phases in the recurrent Reception-Critics-Reaction cycle of commentary and interpretations which had a sizable effect upon the discussion and assimilation of Morgenthau's writings for both academic and politically practical applications. The first phase was that which occurred during Morgenthau's own lifetime up to his death in 1980. The second phase of the discussion of his writings and contributions to the study of international politics and international law was between 1980 and up to the one hundred year commemoration from his birth with took place in 2004. The third phase of the reception of his writings was between this centenary commemoration up to the present time, which continues to show a vibrant reception of his continuing influence.

Criticism and Reception During Morgenthau's European Years

In his very early career from the 1920s, the book review of Carl Schmitt regarding Morgenthau's dissertation had a lasting and negative effect on Morgenthau from the 1920s to the end of his life. Schmitt had become a leading juristic voice for the rising national socialist movement in Germany and Morgenthau came to see their positions as incommensuarable in any practical way. Within five years of this, Morgenthau met Hans Kelsen at Geneva while still studying and Kelsen's treatment of Morgenthau's writings left a lifelong positive impression upon the young Morgenthau which he would not forget throughout his lifetime. Kelsen, in the 1920s, had emerged as Schmitt's most thorough critic and had earned himself a reputation as a leading international critic of the then rising national socialist movement in Germany, which was a perfect match for Morgenthau's own negative opinion of national socialism.

Criticism and Reception During Morgenthau's American Years

It continues to be remarkable to note the extent of the widespread infuence which Morgenthau's book Politics Among Nations (1947) would have upon an entire generation of scholars in global politics and international law. The book, in its five editions during Morgenthau's own lifetime, held a position of such prominence for its originality that virtually all scholars for an entire generation needed to take a position concerning its major topics whether positive or negative. Prior to Morgenthau's book, the topics associated today with the field of International Relations were discussed under the separate headings of either International Law or the History of International Affairs. After Morgenthau's book, the field of International Relations was formally accepted as a discipline in its own rights with Universities and Colleges beginning to formally found entire departments and degree programs for the first time with this specific designation, where previously only degrees in either International Law or History of International Affairs were available.

Perhaps foremost of the scholars, in the late 1950s, at least partially critical of Morgenthau was the then young scholar Kenneth Waltz from Berkeley University who contested the influence which Morgenthau had ascribed to the human element of diplomacy concerning the dynamics of global politics. Waltz felt that this element needed to be significantly discounted for the perception of its influence. Waltz would become a leading voice in the movement called neorealism until he passed away in 2013. With emphasis, Waltz would insist that structural influences of state structure exceeded the influence exerted by diplomats and statesmen in explicating matters of state and politics on both the domestic and international level of political analysis, in distinction from the position which Morgenthau was advocating.

Criticism and Reception of Morgenthau's Legacy

The English language reception of Morgenthau was considerably enhanced through the publication of Morgenthau's short biography by Christoph Frei in 2001 translated into English based upon the original German language publication of the book in 1991 with an emphasis on his student years (see Bibliography below). This was supplemented in the German language by an even more comprehensive biography on Morgenthau by Christoph Rohde in 2004 still only available in the German language. In 2004, no less than three full length commemorative volumes were published on Morgenthau's vast influence on geopolitics over the years by many of the leading contemporary scholars of the day (see Further Reading section below.) John Gaddis and Campbell Craig have together taken a guarded position concerning the reception of both Morgenthau and Waltz. Another of the guarded positions, generally favorable, taken on Morgenthau after his death was that of Stanley Hoffman of Harvard University. A somewhat speculative account trying to tie Thucydides to Morgenthau was published in 2003 by Ned Lebow, even though Morgenthau himself did not explore his larger or lesser relationship to Thucydides.

In the tradition of Kenneth Waltz and defensive neorealism, John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago has studied the relationship of Morgenthau's political realism in comparison with the neo-conservativism prevailing during the Bush Administration of 2003 in the context of the Iraq war. Mearsheimer's general position of offensive neorealism has on other issues come into conflict, for example, with Morgenthau's strong endorsement concerning the creation and support for Israel as an enduring nation. This contrast was evidenced in Mearsheimer's co-authored book with Steven Walt of Harvard University titled The Israel Lobby. For Morgenthau, the ethical and moral component of international politics was on the whole, and unlike the positions of either defensive neorealism or offensive neorealism, an integral part of the reasoning process of both the international statesman and the essential content of responsible scholarship in international relations.

Benjamin Mollov has presented a book in which the second half covers Morgenthau's strong connection to his Jewish origins and his support for the emerging state of Israel up until the end of his life in 1980. Regarding his religious affiliations and duties, Morgenthau is also known to have taken his son to religious services while at the University of Chicago at the congregation located across the street from the church where, prior to his presidency, President Obama had attended church with his family. A broad range of topics in geopolitics continue to appear in the press as recently as 2013 of new books dealing with Morgenthau's influence upon contemporary theory and practice in international politics and international law (see Further Reading section below.)

Bibliography

• Scientific Man versus Power Politics (1946) Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
• Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (1948) New York NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
• In Defense of the National Interest (1951) New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
• The Purpose of American Politics (1960) New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Crossroad Papers: A Look Into the American Future (ed.) (1965) New York, NY: Norton.
• Truth and Power: Essays of a Decade, 1960–70 (1970) New York, NY: Praeger.
• Essays on Lincoln's Faith and Politics. (1983) Lanham, MD: Univ. Press of America for the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the Univ. of Virginia. Co-published with a separate text by David Hein.

For a complete list of Morgenthau's writings, see "The Hans J. Morgenthau Page"

See also

• Morgenthau Lectures by the Carnegie Council
• E. H. Carr
• Kenneth W. Thompson
• Henry Kissinger
• Stephen Walt
• John Mearsheimer
• Committee on International Relations at the University of Chicago

Further reading

• Bain, William. "Deconfusing Morgenthau: Moral Inquiry and Classical Realism Reconsidered." Review of International Studies 26, no. 3 (2000): 445–64.
• Behr, Hartmut, and Amelia Heath. "Misreading in IR Theory and Ideology Critique: Morgenthau, Waltz and Neo-Realism." Review of International Studies 35 (2009): 327–49.
• Bell, Duncan, ed. Political Thought and International Relations: Variations on a Realist Theme. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Bird, Kai. The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms, Simon and Schuster, 2000.
• Conces, Rory J. "Rethinking Realism (or Whatever) and the War on Terrorism in a Place Like the Balkans." Theoria 56 (2009): 81–124.
• Cozette, Murielle. "Reclaiming the Critical Dimension of Realism: Hans J. Morgenthau on the Ethics of Scholarship." Review of International Studies 34 (2008): 5–27.
• Craig, Campbell. Glimmer of a New Leviathan: Total War in the Realism of Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and Waltz. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.
• Donnelly, Jack. Realism and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Frei, Christoph. Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.
• Gellman, Peter. "Hans J. Morgenthau and the Legacy of Political Realism." Review of International Studies 14 (1988): 247–66.
• Goldstein, Gordon. Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam, 2009.
• Griffiths, Martin. Realism, Idealism and International Politics. London: Routledge, 1992.
• Guilhot, Nicolas. "The Realist Gambit: Postwar American Political Science and the Birth of IR Theory." International Political Sociology 4, no. 2 (2008):281–304.
• Hacke, Christian, Gottfried-Karl Kindermann, and Kai M. Schellhorn, eds. The Heritage, Challenge, and Future of Realism: In Memoriam Hans J. Morgenthau (1904–1980). Göttingen, Germany: V&R unipress, 2005.
• Hoffmann, Stanley. "Hans Morgenthau: The Limits and Influence of 'Realism'." In Janus and Minerva. Boulder, CO.: Westview, 1987, pp. 70–81.
• Jütersonke, Oliver. "Hans J. Morgenthau on the Limits of Justiciability in International Law." Journal of the History of International Law 8, no. 2 (2006): 181–211.
• Klusmeyer, Douglas. "Beyond Tragedy: Hannah Arendt and Hans Morgenthau on Responsibility, Evil and Political Ethics." International Studies Review 11, no.2 (2009): 332–351.
• Koskenniemi, Martti. The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures).
• Lang, Anthony F., Jr., ed. Political Theory and International Affairs: Hans J. Morgenthau on Aristotle's The Politics. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004.
• Lebow, Richard Ned. The Tragic Vision of Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Little, Richard. The Balance of Power in International Relations: Metaphors, Myths and Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Mazur, G.O., ed. One Hundred Year Commemoration to the Life of Hans Morgenthau. New York: Semenenko, 2004.
• Mazur, G.O., ed. Twenty-Five Year Memorial Commemoration to the Life of Hans Morgenthau. New York: Semenenko Foundation, Andreeff Hall, 12, rue de Montrosier, 92200 Neuilly, Paris, France, 2006.
• Mearsheimer, John J. "Hans Morgenthau and the Iraq War: Realism Versus Neo-Conservatism." openDemocracy.net (2005).
• Mearsheimer, John J. and Walt, Stephen (2007). The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-17772-4.
• Milne, David. America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War, 2009.
• Mollov, M. Benjamin. Power and Transcendence: Hans J. Morgenthau and the Jewish Experience. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.
• Molloy, Sean. "Aristotle, Epicurus, Morgenthau and the Political Ethics of the Lesser Evil." Journal of International Political Theory 5 (2009): 94–112.
• Molloy, Sean. The Hidden History of Realism: A Genealogy of Power Politics. New York: Palgrave, 2006.
• Murray, A. J. H. "The Moral Politics of Hans Morgenthau." The Review of Politics 58, no. 1 (1996): 81–107.
• Myers, Robert J. "Hans J. Morgenthau: On Speaking Truth to Power." Society 29, no. 2 (1992): 65–71.
• Neacsu, Mihaela. Hans J. Morgenthau's Theory of International Relations: Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
• Peterson, Ulrik. "Breathing Nietzsche's Air: New Reflections on Morgenthau's Concept of Power and Human Nature." Alternatives 24, no. 1 (1999): 83–113.
• Pin-Fat, V. "The Metaphysics of the National Interest and the 'Mysticism' of the Nation-State: Reading Hans J. Morgenthau." Review of International Studies 31, no. 2 (2005): 217–36.
• Rice, Daniel. Reinhold Niebuhr and His Circle of Influence, University of Cambridge Press, 2013.
• Rohde, Christoph. Hans J. Morgenthau und der weltpolitische Realismus (German Edition): Die Grundlegung einer realistischen Theorie. P. Weidmann und Christoph Rohde von VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (16. Februar 2004)
• Russell, Greg. Hans J. Morgenthau and the Ethics of American Statecraft. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990.
• Scheuerman, William E. Hans Morgenthau: Realism and Beyond. Cambridge: Polity, 2009.
• Scheuerman, William E. "Realism and the Left: The Case of Hans J. Morgenthau." Review of International Studies 34 (2008): 29–51.
• Schuett, Robert. "Freudian Roots of Political Realism: The Importance of Sigmund Freud to Hans J. Morgenthau's Theory of International Power Politics." History of the Human Sciences 20, no. 4 (2007): 53–78.
• Schuett, Robert. Political Realism, Freud, and Human Nature in International Relations: The Resurrection of the Realist Man. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
• Shilliam, Robbie. "Morgenthau in Context: German Backwardness, German Intellectuals and the Rise and Fall of a Liberal Project." European Journal of International Relations 13, no. 3 (2007): 299–327.
• Smith, Michael J. Realist Thought from Weber to Kissinger. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986.
• Thompson, Kenneth W., and Robert J. Myers, eds. Truth and Tragedy: A Tribute to Hans J. Morgenthau. augmented ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1984.
• Tickner, J. Ann. "Hans Morgenthau's Principles of Political Realism: A Feminist Reformulation." Millennium: Journal of International Studies 17, no.3 (1988): 429–40.
• Tjalve, Vibeke Schou. Realist Strategies of Republican Peace: Niebuhr, Morgenthau, and the Politics of Patriotic Dissent. New York: Palgrave, 2008.
• Tsou, Tang. America's Failure in China, 1941–50.
• Turner, Stephen, and G.O. Mazur. "Morgenthau as a Weberian Methodologist." European Journal of International Relations 15, no. 3 (2009): 477–504.
• Williams, Michael C., ed. Realism Reconsidered: The Legacy of Hans Morgenthau in International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
• Williams, Michael C. The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Williams, Michael C. "Why Ideas Matter in International Relations: Hans Morgenthau, Classical Realism, and the Moral Construction of Power Politics." International Organization 58 (2004): 633–65.
• Wong, Benjamin. "Hans Morgenthau's Anti-Machiavellian Machiavellianism." Millennium: Journal of International Studies 29, no. 2 (2000): 389–409.
• Young-Bruehl, Elizabeth. Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, Second Edition, Yale University Press, 2004.
• Zambernardi, Lorenzo. I limiti della potenza. Etica e politica nella teoria internazionale di Hans J. Morgenthau. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2010.