This book analyses popular sovereignty, one of the fundamental features of modern politics and history. It critically engages with the key thinkers responsible for creating and criticizing popular sovereignty and covers topics such as war, finance, legislation, revolution, religion and political ideology.

• Front matter
  • Cover
  • Half Title
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• People power
• Machiavelli’s ‘moments’
• Death and taxes in Machiavelli’s Florentine state
• Taming the Parliament: John Locke on legislative limits, prerogative and popular sovereignty
• Montesquieu and the theory of limited sovereignty
• The revolution for society: rethinking popular sovereignty, American independence and the Age of the Democratic Revolution
• Filippo Mazzei’s Atlantic revolutions: a new dawn for popular sovereignty or populism?
• Popular sovereignty as populism in the early American republic
• Like a god on earth: popular sovereignty in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
• Plural voting and popular government in Victorian Britain
• Modern representation and the popular will
• Sovereignty, God and the historians
• Conclusion: what is popular sovereignty?
• Index