Modern political theory begins with the rise of the philosophical concept and practice of sovereignty in the sixteenth century. Over the course of the next several centuries, sovereignty was generalized as "the "form of the modern state eventually, there was no state that was not sovereign, and there was no understanding of the state that did not depend upon the notion of sovereignty. Yet, as Gerard Mairet argues in "The Fable of the World," at this moment of the culmination of political sovereignty, the limitations and dangers of this theory and practice have become all too apparent....