Morgenthau, Hans Joachim, 1904–80, American political scientist and foreign policy analyst, b. Coburg, Germany. After studying at the universities of Frankfort and Munich, he attended the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, then taught there (1932–35). He also taught at the Institute of International and Economics Studies, Madrid (1935–36). With the rise of Naziism in Germany, he immigrated to the United States (1937) and subsequently taught at several colleges and universities, including the Univ. of Chicago (1943–71), where he was also director of the Center for the Study of American Foreign Policy, the City Univ. of New York (1968–74), and the New School for Social Research (1974–80). He also was an adviser to the U.S. State and Defense departments in the 1960s.
A scholar of international relations, he believed in political realism in international relations, became increasingly critical of U.S. interventionism, and advocated for nuclear arms control and détente with the Soviet Union. He also rejected the belief in the ability of science and technology to solve societal and political problems. His works include Scientific Man vs. Power Politics (1946), Politics among Nations (1948), In Defense of the National Interest (1951), Dilemmas of Politics (1958), The Purpose of American Politics (1960), Politics in the 20th Century (1962), A New Foreign Policy for the United States (1967), and Science: Servant or Master (1972).
See C. Frei, Hans J. Morgenthau: An Intellectual Biography (2001); G. Russell, Hans J. Morgenthau and the Ethics of American Statecraft (1990).
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