Author: Will Hanley
File Type: pdf
Nationality is the most important legal mechanism for sorting and classifying the worlds population today. An individuals state of birth or naturalization determines where he or she can and cannot be and what he or she can and cannot do. Although this system may appear universal, even natural, Will Hanley shows it arose just a century ago. In Identifying with Nationality, he uses the multinational Mediterranean city of Alexandria to trace a genealogy of the nation and the formation of the modern subject. Alexandria in 1880 was an immigrant boomtown ruled by dozens of overlapping regimes. On its streets and in its police stations and courtrooms, people were identified according to name, occupation, place of origin, sect, physical description, and other attributes. By 1914, nationality had become the leading category of identification. Even before nationalist claims for independence and decolonization were widespread, nationality laws governed Alexandrias population. Identifying with Nationality traces the advent of modern national citizenships to multinational, transimperial settings such as turn-of-the-century colonial Alexandria. Ordinary individuals abandoned old identifiers and grasped nationality as the best means to access the protections promised by expanding states, creating a problematic system that continues to complicate rules of status, mobility, and residency.**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 The Last Utopia Human Rights in History) Hanleys book is a superb historical and sociolegal account of the rise of nationalitythe 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 worldthe persistence of statelessness. (Samera Esmeir, University of California, Berkeley) Identifying with Nationality is a magisterial investigation into Alexandrias 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) An outstanding study of the imposition of nationality in imperial Alexandria. Highly recommended. (Choice) About the Author Will Hanley is assistant professor of history at Florida State University.