Book Review: Oliver Juetersonke, Morgenthau, Law and Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, 212 pp., £69.00 hbk)
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298110400011204 |
| Date | 01 September 2011 |
| Author | Hartmut Behr |
| Published date | 01 September 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
192 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 40(1)
influential one. This finding affirms others along the same lines in international relations
scholarship in the last two decades.
In sum, a wide range of readers – in both the qualitative and quantitative traditions –
will find this book of exceptional help. The writing is elegant, precise, engaging and to
the point. This Herculean effort to tackle the underlying foundations of international
political earthquakes is bound to become the book of reference in the study of interna-
tional conflict for years to come.
Etel Solingen
Etel Solingen is Chancellor’s Professor in Political Science at the University of
California-Irvine, USA.
Oliver Juetersonke, Morgenthau, Law and Realism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2010, 212 pp., £69.00 hbk).
Juetersonke’s book, Morgenthau, Law and Realism, is a knowledgeable and well-
researched, though, nevertheless, an ambivalent, study. This ambivalence is expressed in
two observations: on the one hand, Juetersonke’s assessment of Morgenthau’s realism is
informed by a profound familiarity with his oeuvre, and, on the other hand, he contextu-
alises his scholarship in the legal, sociological and philosophical debates from the 1920s
to the 1940s, a critical period for Morgenthau’s intellectual development. Juetersonke
highlights the continuity of Morgenthau’s key positions as expressed in both his European
and American scholarship. To illustrate the trajectory of Morgenthau’s thoughts, he elu-
cidates his work ranging from his doctoral dissertation in 1929, his postdoctoral research
in Geneva in the early 1930s and his many monographs and articles after his emigration
to the US.
Juetersonke provides convincing arguments against the distinction of Morgenthau’s
oeuvre in a pre- and post-emigration divide as upheld by mainstream International
Relations (IR) scholars. Thus, Juetersonke is part of a critical-normative scholarship,
which includes colleagues such as Michael Williams, Ned Lebow, Vibeke Tjalve and
Sean Molloy, and re-engages ‘classical realism’ through critical epistemology and ethics,
freeing Morgenthau (and other subsumed ‘classical realists’ such as E.H. Carr, but also
historically Thucydides and Hobbes) from the iron grip of monolingual and materialist
interpretations, which represent Morgenthau and others as advocates of essentialised
national interest and power-politics. This largely mistaken understanding stems from the
neo-realist/neo-liberal IR mainstream, but also from many post-structuralist accounts (as
most notably from Jim George). Juetersonke’s important critique of such narrow read-
ings is complemented by his archival research and wide incorporation of German, French
and English sources.
On the other hand, there are statements by Juetersonke which appear self-contradictory
at times. We find an example early in the text when Juetersonke writes that ‘(analysing)
Morgenthau’s work using the conceptual toolkit of IR theory alone, while at the same
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