Thompson's "Principles and Problems of International Politics", a volume of readings co-edited with his mentor, Hans Morgenthau, provided the intellectual guidelines for his thinking through the succeeding four decades. Primary among these guidelines is a reliance on history. Thompson has seen himself as part of the influential tradition of political realism, the heir of the thought of Morgenthau and Reinhold Niebuhr, and the sustainer of the subsequent generation of scholars. He organized and coedited the innovative seventh edition of "Politics among Nations" released by McGraw Hill.