"In this introductory chapter I lay out the themes of the book. I explain why state death matters. I describe how state death has been studied in the past. I indicate why we need to consider both sovereign states and territorial contenders and why we need to include all forms of state death in order to advance understanding of this important topic. The broader focus is necessary because many theoretical arguments about state death cannot be fairly tested unless we consider more actors and more behaviours. In this chapter I also carefully consider trade-offs between past research and the many research design changes proposed. Throughout the chapter I offer many real-world examples of state deaths to demonstrate the range of actors and event types relevant to the fundamental question of how states die"--