This book provides a thematic examination of republican theory from the Renaissance, through the Enlightenment and the experiences of the early American republic, to contemporary debates. It maps out a republican ideal type according to four themes: popular sovereignty; a view of history which is sensitive to systemic corruption; an insistence on civic virtue; and, following Philip Pettit, a conception of liberty as non-domination. Where possible it contrasts the treatment of those themes with that of liberals and other streams of thought.