In this book, leading historians of the French, Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Neapolitan revolutions bridge the gap between the historiographies of the so-called Sister Republics and explore political culture as a set of discourses or political practices. Parliamentary practices, the comparability of "universal" political concepts, late-eighteenth-century Republicanism, the relationship between press and politics, and the interaction between the Sister Republics and France are all examined from a comparative, transnational perspective.

This volume explores the relevance of decline within the republican tradition. While scholarship on republicanism thrives, the idea of decline, which has been prominent in republican theory since antiquity, has received relatively little attention. The essays in this volume take a broad cultural perspective and study a wide variety of authors and (con)texts to situate decline among the key concepts in the history of republicanism. Most contributions focus on the Dutch Republic during the Age of Enlightenment and Revolutions, the area of expertise of Wyger Velema, to whom this volume is dedicated. Other case studies include early modern Spain and Venice, the German Enlightenment, and the Weimar Republic. Contributors are: Remieg Aerts, Hans Erich Boedeker, Wiep van Bunge, Lisa Kattenberg, Wessel Krul, Matthijs Lok, Alessandro Metlica, Ida Nijenhuis, Elea de la Porte, Jan Rotmans, Niek van Sas, Freya Sierhuis, and Lina Weber.