Realism has perhaps the longest pedigree of the three principal perspectives in International Political Economy, starting with Thucydides's writings in 400 B,C, and including Niccolo Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and the mer. cantilisis Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Friedrich List. Discredited with the rise of Liberalism in the nineteenth century. Realism reetmerged as an important perspective only in the aftermath of the Great Depression of the 1930s as scholars sought to understand the causes of the widespread economic war- fare of"beggar-thy neighbor" policies initiated in 1929. Realists believe that nation-states pursue power and shape the economy to this end. Unlike Liberals and Marxists. Realists perceive politics as determining economics