Citizens without Nations: Urban Citizenship in Europe and the World, c.1000–1789

by Maarten Prak

Citizenship is at the heart of our contemporary world but it is a particular vision of national citizenship forged in the French Revolution. In Citizens without Nations, Maarten Prak recovers the much longer tradition of urban citizenship across the medieval and early modern world. Ranging from Europe and the American colonies to China and the Middle East, he reveals how the role of 'ordinary people' in urban politics has been systematically underestimated and how civic institutions such as neighbourhood associations, craft guilds, confraternities and civic militias helped shape local and state politics. By destroying this local form of citizenship, the French Revolution initially made Europe less, rather than more democratic. Understanding citizenship's longer-term history allows us to change the way we conceive of its future, rethink what it is that makes some societies more successful than others, and whether there are fundamental differences between European and non-European societies.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

433 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 16, 2018

About the author

Professor of Social and Economic History at Utrecht University.

Reviews

[Dropbear123 · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 for enjoyment, 4/5 for info. First book I've read on this subject though so I have nothing to compare it to. Going to be a bit of a longer review than I usually do.

Decent and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. For an academic work on a fairly niche topic it was not that hard or boring to read in terms of writing style. I also liked that each chapter has its own conclusion summing it up, in addition to a big conclusion at the end of the book. Split into 3 parts. Part 1 covers various aspects of citizenship in the medieval and early modern world, things like formal citizenship, guilds, citizen militias, welfare etc. This part was my favourite section of the book, especially the chapters on guilds and militias. Part 2 covers the histories of towns and citizenship in various areas of Europe - England, Netherlands, Italy and a chapter for France and the HRE. Personally I liked this part the least and aside from the England chapter I found it quite boring. The book then picks up again in Part 3 for citizenship outside Europe - China, the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East and a comparison of the British and Spanish colonies in the Americas. Enjoyed this part more than I expected I would as usually I'm not that interested in history outside of Europe.

The main arguments of the book are (1) that urban populations had more say over local politics (through petitions, voting, revolt or the threat of revolt) than previously assumed, power was not just in the hands of the elites. (2) That the French Revolution initially made Europe less democratic by destroying various local institutions like guilds and giving more power to central governments. (3) Even though China and the Ottomans didn't have formal urban citizenship if you define citizenship more as a set of practices, rights in return for duties, then they did have something like it. (4) This is sort of shoved in at the end but the theory that side by side the civic institutions of the Spanish colonies in the Americas were probably stronger than the British ones and the reason for the divergence of the North and South America is due to the nature of how they gained independence. The USA gained its independence against a strong British empire so needed to mobilise a lot of resources. The Spanish colonies gained their independence against a Spain that had been occupied by Napoleon so less resources needed to be mobilised and more infighting between local elites was possible.

Overall I would only recommend it if you are interested in the history of urban areas or of urban politics, in which case it is definitely worth reading. Otherwise you can probably skip it.

[Sanjay Prabhakar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has justified an ill explored romanticism I have had for pre-modern urban community due to similar sentiments of German Romantics. Makes uncomfortably clear how lobotomised contemporary notions of citizenship are compared to the situation that obtained in many pre-modern urban contexts, including outside Europe. Lots of data and a nice thesis, contra Weber as well as rationalistic liberalism since the French Revolution. The most important takeaway for me was that pre- and early modern citizenship was to a large extent practice based and bottom-up, and hence not especially suited to abstract theorising. The consequent lack of theoretical literature goes a long way towards explaining the systematic undervaluation of urban republicanism and related ideas and practices, and brings out the contrast with later codified and more abstract forms of citizenship. Also curious that the chapter on militias provided a glimpse into a positive ideal of an armed citizenry, though it will remain difficult to convince me that any such grounding for contemporary American support of their 2nd Amendment is not primarily an exercise in LARPing.

[Katie Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of a slog because this book is absolutely packed with details and not much narrative. Essentially - a history of citizenship, or what it means to be an effective member of a community. But worth sticking with it. This has changed my thinking about the world and might do for you as well.

[Anaiskald · Rating 3 out of 5]

看了写中国的部分给我看蒙了，还能这样写。脱离语境和文化讨论实践真的是太可怕了。最后的结论是中国的落后是由于中央政府太弱。我一口气差点厥过去。