Republic
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Republic. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a form of government which proceeds from the people, and in which proceeds from the people, and in which rulers are elected by popular vote. When not dominated by tyrants the cities of Greece were republican in government. The medieval cities of northern Italy are usually spoken of as city republics. As a matter of fact they were ruled by aristocracies who chose one of their number to act as doge or prince. Thus the doge of the so-called republic of Venice was merely the leader of a small number of wealthy persons who considered themselves the commonwealth. Ordinary people had no rights which anybody was bound to regard. Switzerland is the oldest republic of importance in Europe. The French republic was established in 1870. That set up by the French Revolution was of short duration. The Free Cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lubeck have republican forms of government. The small commonwealths of San Marino in Italy and Andorra in the Pyrenees between France and Spain are republics. England possessed a republican form of government during the rule of the Commonwealth from 1649 to 1660. In the New World the United States is the leading republic. Argentina and Cuba are republican. Chile and Brazil are semi-republics. The other nations of Central and South America , including Mexico, though nominally republican, are in reality military despotisms. The latter country in particular, however, is making excellent progress toward republicanism. A republican, that is to say, a representative form of government is possible only in an intelligent, law-abiding community. See Congress
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a commonwealth; a form of political constitution in which the supreme power is vested, not in a hereditary ruler, but in the hands either of certain privileged members of the community or of the whole community.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's wrote in 1910 it could still list the world's republics almost by name — Switzerland, France since 1870, the Free Cities of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck, San Marino, Andorra, and the Americas — because monarchy was the normal European form. The First World War and then decolonisation reversed that: Germany became a republic in 1918, and today around 150 of the 193 UN member states are republics, with monarchies the exception. Some particulars have also fallen away: Hamburg and Bremen are now city-states inside federal Germany rather than sovereign free cities, Andorra is a parliamentary co-principality under the Bishop of Urgell and the French President, and France has been through two further republics, the Fifth dating from 1958. Aiton's confidence that representative government is "possible only in an intelligent, law-abiding community" — and its praise of Mexico's "excellent progress" on the eve of a decade of revolution — reads now as the political prejudice of its moment rather than a rule of statecraft.
Written for this edition, 2026.