@groweg , it sounds like you might have concentrated in political science in your Chicago days, so perhaps you will be able to comment on a speculation I, a non-political-scientist, have had about Mearsheimer.
He is a pretty hard-boiled character and puts me very much in mind of the great marquee figure of my own day, Hans Morgenthau. Morgenthau could be described as a “classical realist.” Does that description fit Mearsheimer? Could it be said to describe the orientation of the Chicago department or school of thought as a whole? Does Mearsheimer indeed see himself as in any way Morgenthau’s successor?
Morgenthau tended to cite Thucydides at every turn. I think he saw Thucydides as his own predecessor. And if one had to choose an author read by everyone in the College once upon a time, that would be the one. Old Hans, with his faint dueling scars and his intellectual passions, often seemed the incarnation of the Spirit of History. He had a very devoted following in the College, where he taught a very popular course, based on his famous textbook, called “Politics Among Nations.” Does Mearsheimer have any similarly iconic significance in the College?