The republican idea has been at the forefront of public debate since the early 1980s. In this book, contemporary French philosopher Serge Odier offers a historical and conceptual analysis that helps clarify the deep meaning of this idea. The republic, a key concept of Ancient Rome (res publica – “the thing of the people”), re-emerges during the Renaissance and begins to embody political freedom capable of resisting arbitrariness: its main postulates are the priority of the public interest over private interests, rule by law, and civic virtue. You will learn how these ideas have transformed from Machiavelli to the theorists of the Third Republic. Today, republicanism is at the center of new debates. How can it respond to the problems of modern societies in civil and social terms? Should it change in the context of globalization and the rise of multiculturalism? Can it open the way to the democratization of liberal models of the state? Exploring the main political principles of our time, the author compares contemporary ideas about the meaning and future of the republican idea.