The first biography of Hans Morgenthau, refugee from Nazi Germany and pioneer of the ‘realist’ approach to international relations, now resurgent in global politics.

'An insightful account of Morgenthau’s hard-nosed worldview.’ — Publishers Weekly

'Essential for students and practitioners of geopolitics.’ — Kirkus (starred review)

‘International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power.’ Hans Morgenthau wrote these words in 1948, as Soviet–American wartime cooperation deteriorated into tense post-war rivalry. His Politics Among Nations quickly became the defining international relations textbook. Henry Kissinger said, ‘All of us who taught the subject after him, however much we differed from one another, had to start with his reflections.’

Morgenthau’s realism stemmed from his traumatic experiences in interwar Germany. Amid rampant anti-Semitism, his classmates ostracised and spat at him. He saw Hitler break the law with impunity when he marched on Morgenthau’s hometown, Coburg. Morgenthau concluded that abstract ideals offered no protection: power only yielded to countervailing power. Fleeing to the US in 1937, his influential thought drove Cold War foreign-policy debates. As his peers backed the Vietnam War, Morgenthau dismantled the case for intervention on realist grounds.

Meticulously researched and masterfully written, The Realist shows the enduring relevance of Morgenthau’s ideas in our age of international disorder and great power competition.

• Reveals the origins of Morgenthau’s realism, rooted in the traumas he experienced in interwar Germany.
• The concept of ‘realism’ has come under close scrutiny in the era of Trump as pundits debate if his foreign policy is a case study of ‘realism’
• A Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, David M. Sacks has written for several news outlets including The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

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‘Essential for students and practitioners of geopolitics.’

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‘Sacks’s incisive profile of Morgenthau captures the somber foundations of his thinking, as well as the brooding charisma with which he demolished comfortable myths. The result is an insightful account of Morgenthau’s hard-nosed worldview.’

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‘Hans Morgenthau was the most consequential American political theorist of the twentieth century. Henry Kissinger and others stood on his shoulders. Finally there is a full-bodied biography of the man. David M. Sacks, in discovering Morgenthau for a new generation, also defines foreign policy realism, a concept that has been vastly misunderstood.’

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‘Hans Morgenthau’s writings are central to understanding the past, present, and future. In this gripping, definitive biography, David M. Sacks tells the story of the young man who fled Hitler’s Germany and connects it to the professor whose ideas and words provided direction for policymakers navigating the Cold War—ideas and words that continue to shape the thinking of almost everyone involved in the debate about America’s role in the world.’

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‘Not always subtle but often right, Hans Morgenthau was the founding father of international relations realism and a towering and often combative intellectual. David Sacks’ outstanding biography shows that Morgenthau’s life was as significant as his thought.’

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‘Nearly eighty years after Politics Among Nations, Hans Morgenthau finally has the biography he deserves. In this gripping profile, David M. Sacks chronicles the life and ideas of the man who would go on to reshape the study of international relations. I may often have disagreed with Morgenthau’s answers, but I never stopped returning to the brilliance of his questions.’