Power and Transcendence: Hans J. Morgenthau and the Jewish Experience

This volume examines and documents the impact of the Jewish experience on the life and work of the influential theoretician of international politics, Hans J. Morgenthau (1904-1980). Once considered a one-dimensional advocate of pure realpolitik, revisionist work on his legacy has uncovered transcendent themes in Morgenthau’s thought on the importance of morality in statecraft. Seeking to bridge the gap in existing literature, M. Benjamin Mollov’s work offers an understanding of the very real impact which anti-semitism and Morgenthau’s own German-Jewish moral and spiritual heritage had on his political thought. A liberal rather than a classical realist, Morgenthau’s writing and teaching on issues ranging from Soviet Jewry to Israel, nuclear proliferation, and the Vietnam War reveal a moral, philosophical, and even spiritual approach to the mission of political science.