Politics Among Nations

Born on February 17, 1904, Hans Morgenthau was a scholar of political science, an expert in international law, and a political advisor. Hailed as “a founding proponent of political realism” and “the central figure in international relations scholarship of the twentieth century” (“Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography.” LSU Press), he is the celebrated author of the seminal text Politics Among Nations, which single-handedly revolutionized the conversation surrounding issues of diplomacy.

Morgenthau came from a middle-class Jewish family in Coburg, a town in southern Germany, and went on to study politics and law at the Universities of Berlin and Frankfurt before receiving a doctorate in international law at the University of Munich in 1929. He then worked as a lawyer and a professor of law in Frankfurt. Due to the Nazi persecution of Jewish citizens in the years leading up to World War II, Morgenthau emigrated in 1937 to Switzerland and then to Spain, eventually resettling in the United States, where he became a prolific writer, teacher, and scholar. He served as a faculty member of the University of Chicago from 1943 to 1971, and he also worked as a political advisor to the US State Department and the John F.