This innovative research monograph on sovereignty argues that the historical examination of the concept and the conceptual analysis of sovereignty are interdependent. The book engages with and makes a significant contribution to the literatures on sovereignty from the history of political thought and political theory. It offers a clear survey and evaluation of interlinked debates within these literatures, and provides lively and scholarly interpretations of thinkers including Bodin, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Foucault and Schmitt. This book will be of interest to historians of political thought, political theorists, political philosophers, IR theorists, and legal theorists. Raia Prokhovnik is reader in politics as the Open University and co-editor, Contemporary Political Theory.