Morgenthau in Europe: Searching for the Political

This chapter investigates Hans Morgenthau’s last years in Europe, aiming to identify the role that his intellectual socialization in Germany, Spain, and Switzerland played for his later American writings. To that extent, two of Morgenthau’s European writings are being discussed in more detail: The Concept of the Political and the Theory of International Differences and On the Purpose of Science in These Times and on Human Destiny. In these texts, Morgenthau elaborated on the crisis of modern societies and spoke against positivistic sciences. In later years, this would bring him to formulate an ethics of responsibility and to support a reflective, democratic dimension in foreign policymaking, demonstrating the importance of the European Morgenthau for the American Morgenthau.