Description
Book SynopsisIdentifying with Nationality traces the advent of modern citizenship to multinational, transimperial settings such as turn-of-the-century colonial Alexandria, where ordinary people abandoned old identifiers and grasped nationality as the best means to access the protections promised by expanding states.
Trade ReviewWhat nationality are you? In his stunning book, Will Hanley follows this modern question deep into the social existence of ordinary Alexandrians, demonstrating the contradictory effects of its imposition. The results open a portal, not simply on a unique city in the tumultuous years between Ottoman rule and Egyptian semi-sovereignty, but also on a pivotal global experience that historians have missed. In this lucidly written and well-researched book, Hanley rewrites the history of international law and intervenes brilliantly in multiple literatures. A must-read. -- Samuel Moyn, Harvard University, author of
Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal WorldHanley's book is a superb historical and sociolegal account of the rise of nationality—the universal regime of legal identification that captures what is unique about the modern world. Along the way, Hanley vividly captures the loss of another world: of concrete and heterogeneous forms of life that sought protection in other networks of affiliation. I recommend this remarkably researched and beautifully written book to scholars in Middle Eastern studies, and also to anyone who is thinking about a key characteristic of our world—the persistence of statelessness. -- Samera Esmeir, University of California, Berkeley
Identifying with Nationality is a magisterial investigation into Alexandria's diverse population, which comprised interwoven European, colonial, local, imperial, and national entities. Will Hanley examines this patchwork setting, clarifies that nationality at the end of the nineteenth century was a European privilege, and explores the process by which it would become what it is today: the most fundamental human right. An illuminating masterpiece. -- Patrick Weil, vsiting professor of law and Oscar M. Ruebhausen Distinguished Senior Fellow, Yale University
With its close and textured descriptions and analysis, Hanley’s book sheds important new light on the social history of an important port city. . . . Anybody who is interested in late Ottoman Egypt will find it impossible to ignore this book. * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *
The arguments that this book advances are elegantly constructed and undergirded with brilliant research. They are made even more impressive by writing that shows real élan. Hanley’s work offers a major contribution to Egyptian and Ottoman history that should also be required reading for historians of Europe and the wider Mediterranean. -- Alex Chase-Levenson * English Historical Review *
An extremely original and illuminating study. It opens up an entirely new field of historical research exploring the construction of modern human frameworks of identity in Egypt and the Middle East. . . . Hanley's attention to both the particular and the global, to the national and the transnational/international, makes his book an indispensable work, not only for students of the Middle East, but also for anybody interested in the formation of modern nationality, nationalism, and citizenship. * International Journal of Middle East Studies *
Groundbreaking. . . . Richly detailed and beautifully written. . . . Hanley sheds new light on the origins and spread of the nation-state system in the Mediterranean world. * Review of Middle East Studies *
An outstanding study of the imposition of nationality in imperial Alexandria. Highly recommended. * Choice *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction: Nationality Grasped
Part I: Settings1. Vulgar Cosmopolitanism
2. Keywords
Part II: Means3. Papers
4. Census
5. Money
6. Marriage
Part III: Other Nationalities7. Europeans
8. Foreigners
9. Protégés
10. Bad Subjects
11. Ottomans
12. Locals
Epilogue: Egyptians in a World of Universal Nationality
Notes
Bibliography
Index
