An investigation of the origins of republican government, by some of the world's leading historians of ideas.

List of contributors; Acknowledgements; Introduction: the invention of the modern republic Biancamaria Fontana; 1. Ancient and modern republicanism: 'mixed constitution' and 'ephors' Wilfried Nippel; 2. Checks, balances and boundaries: the separation of powers in the constitutional debate of 1787 Bernard Manin; 3. From Utopia to repulicanism: the case of Diderot Gerolamo Imbruglia; 4. Cordeliers and Girondins: the prehistory of the republic? Patrice Gueniffey; 5. The constitutional republicanism of Emmanuel Sieyès Pasquale Pasquino; 6. The Thermidorian republic and its principles Biancamaria Fontana; 7. Francesco Mario Pagano's 'Republic of Virtue': Naples 1799 Anthony Pagden; 8. Kant, the French revolution and the definition of the republic Gareth Stedman Jones; 9. French historians and the reconstruction of the republican tradition, 1800¿1848 François Furet; 10. The republic of universal suffrage Pierre Rosanvallon; 11. The identity of the bourgeois liberal republic John Dunn; Bibliography; Index.