Knorr and Rosenau used the concept of an earlier debate to characterise international relations works published between 1939 and 1960. According to their account, the important participants in the first of these debates were Carr, Morgenthau, Thomas Cook, Malcolm Moos, and Kenneth Thompson.Their relevant works were published between 1939 and 1960. An Arend Lijphardt article also argued that the idealist/realist argument had begun in the 1930s, and continued for the decade following the Second World War.Although Olson’s piece is evidence of the fact that under-standing about significant debates in international thought was far from settled during the 1970s, the majority of works in this period thought of the realist/idealist divide as a new academic tradition, rather than the latest edition of a longstanding form of public quarrel.