This introductory chapter surveys the existing histories of Scottish nationalism and gives an initial narrative of the independence movement’s trajectory across the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The chapter then argues that the methods of intellectual history can shed fresh light on this history by investigating in greater depth how nationalists have conceptualised and defended the goal of ‘independence’ in political argument. The chapter distinguishes the focus of this book on more analytic modes of political thought from other cultural histories of the period and delineates the complex ways in which the concepts of ‘nationalism’ and ‘unionism’ have been used in Scottish political debate. The chapter concludes by giving an overview of the structure and argument of the book.