The Tragic Vision of Politics

Richard Ned Lebow is the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. He is the author, co-author or editor of over eighteen books, many of them about international conflict and its management. He is currently President of the International Society of Political Psychology.

• 1. Nixon in Hell; 2. Tragedy and politics; 3. Thucydides and war; 4. Thucydides and civilization; 5. Carl von Clausewitz; 6. Hans J. Morgenthau; 7. The wisdom of classical realism; 8. Running red lights and ruling the world; 9. Tragedy and scholarship.

'This is an important book. Brilliantly conceived and argued, Lebow analyzes in the original the texts of three 'classical' realists - Thucydides, Clausewitz and Morgenthau - to argue for a more humanistic and compassionate American foreign policy. Ethical behavior and justice, he argues, are not incompatible with Realpolitik. Fragmentation and compartmentalization have built a firewall between the humanities and social sciences. Lebow calls for a balance, a synthesis. He may, in his own words, be like a 'salmon swimming upstream', but in his case, the journey is worth the effort.' Holger H. Herwig, University of Calgary