MICHALAK, Stanley (J., Jr.) 1938-

PERSONAL: Born December 16, 1938, in Reading, PA; son of Stanley J., Sr. (a truck mechanic) and Rose (a factory worker) Michalak; married June 23, 1963; wife's name Eleanor (marriage ended); married Beverly Bimes, January 6, 1984; children: (first marriage) Sarah, David. Ethnicity: "Polish-Czech." Education: Albright College, A.B. (magna cum laude), 1960; Princeton University, Ph.D., 1967. Politics: "Republican Conservative." Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Piano (classical, jazz), gardening.

ADDRESSES: Home—1585 Hunsicker Rd., Bird-in-Hand, PA 17505. Office—Department of Government, Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA 17604-3003. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Ohio State University, Columbus, visiting lecturer in political science, summers, 1964-66; Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA, assistant professor, 1966-71, associate professor, 1971-80, professor of government, 1980—, department chair, 1973-76, 1980-82, director of Center for Liberal Arts and Society, 1999-2002, director of Learn and Serve Program, 2000-02. University of Montana, visiting assistant professor, 1968; Indiana University—Bloomington, visiting assistant professor, 1969-70; Foreign Policy Research Institute, Philadelphia, PA, visiting research fellow, 1979-81.

WRITINGS:

United States National Security Issues, Consortium for International Studies Education, 1978.

UNCTAD: An Organization Betraying Its Mission, Heritage Foundation (Washington, DC), 1983.

(Editor, with Robert C. Gray, and contributor) American Foreign Policy: From the Seventies to the Eighties, Harper & Row (New York, NY), 1984.

Competing Conceptions of American Foreign Policy: World Views in Conflict, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1992.

A Primer in Power Politics: Five Easy Lessons, Scholarly Resources (Wilmington, DE), 2001.

Contributor to books, including The United Nations in the International System, edited by Leon Gordenker, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1971; andThe United Nations in the World Political Economy: Essays in Honor of Leon Gordenker, Macmillan Press (New York, NY), 1989. Contributor to periodicals, including USA Today, College Teaching, Liberal Education, Washington Quarterly, International Studies Quarterly, World Politics, Journal of Higher Education, Intellect, and Backgrounder.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research on liberalism and independent politics; research on "place-in-the-sun revisionists."

SIDELIGHTS: Stanley Michalak told CA: "My book A Primer in Power Politics: Five Easy Lessons was written to provide a clear and jargon-free introduction to humanistic political realism. The need for such a book seemed obvious to me very early in the post-cold war era. Despite the success of the United Nations in rolling Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, George Bush's new world order never materialized, and the United Nations failed to 'take over,' as the head of the American branch of the United Nations Association urged. Nor did principle replace power and interests in America's foreign policy as Roger Morris predicted at the beginning of the 1990s. President Clinton's 'assertive multilateralism' lasted hardly a year, and what followed was perhaps more futile uses of military force than has ever been undertaken by any American president.

"However, while underscoring the importance of anarchy, power, and structure, the humanistic realism presented in my primer also emphasizes purpose and limits: limits to the power that states can husband, limits to the utility of force, limits to reason, and limits to principles ungrounded in experience. Thus, this book is heir to the writings of such scholars and diplomats as Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick Schuman, Winston Churchill, E. H. Carr, Nicholas Spykman, Dean Acheson, Hans Morgenthau, Arnold Wolfers, George Kennan, Kenneth Thompson, Louis Halle, and Henry Kissinger.

"As prolific as these men have been in their own writings, there is no contemporary work that students or members of the public can turn to for a basic grounding in the oldest intellectual tradition in the discipline. Earlier introductions are all out of print or have not been updated since the 1980s.

"In addition to reaching students, I have also written this book for members of the general public. Over the past thirty-five years, I have led two lives: a professional life as a teacher of international politics and a personal life as a citizen, community member, neighbor, and relative. In each of these lives, I have had innumerable conversations about questions of international politics and foreign policy, and what has continually struck me is how, on issue after issue—from Vietnam to Bosnia—the nonspecialists were, all too often, more sensible and more realistic than scholars who had spent their working lives studying such questions.

"Few people in the academic world write for the general public any more. Consequently, there is a widening gap between research and reality as scholars and citizens live in separate worlds. Thus, my primer seeks to help bridge that gap by giving members of the public greater confidence that their fundamental instincts are sound and that they should not feel embarrassed by their lack of 'education' in the face of experts or professionals. My purpose is not to instruct the general public, but to confirm what many intuitively know on the basis of experience.

"However, one point must be made absolutely clear. Nothing in this primer should be considered an endorsement or glorification of power politics, violence, or amorality. My purpose is neither to blame nor to applaud, but to understand."