The Decline of Democratic Politics

by Hans J. Morgenthau

Excerpt from The Decline of Democratic Politics

This task confronts political thought with an inescapable dilemma. What of the tradition is perennially true, and what is but the out growth of particular interests and circumstances? And what in the political experience of the contemporary world is the ephemeral product of historic accident, and what is a manifestation of the eter nal verities of politics? The history of political thought is the story of the gropings with which successive generations have searched for answers to these questions. They had to beware of two temptations which are indeed the horns of the either to smother the contemporary world with obsolescent dogma or else to exchange the wisdom of the ages for the innovations of the age.

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431 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Leading twentieth-century figures in the study of international politics. He made landmark contributions to international relations theory and the study of international law, and his Politics Among Nations, first published in 1948, went through many editions and was for decades the most-used textbook in its field in U.S. universities. In addition, Morgenthau wrote widely about international politics and U.S. foreign policy for general-circulation publications such as The New Leader, Commentary, Worldview, and The New Republic. He knew and corresponded with many of the leading intellectuals and writers of his era, such as Reinhold Niebuhr, George F. Kennan, and Hannah Arendt. At one point in the early Cold War, Morgenthau was a consultant to the U.S. Department of State when Kennan headed its Policy Planning Staff. For most of his career, however, Morgenthau was an academic critic of U.S. foreign policy rather than a formulator of it.