Hanley's new book Identifying with Nationality

Wed, 09/27/17
Hanley-IdentifyingwithNationality

Will Hanley's new book Identifying with Nationality: Europeans, Ottomans, and Egyptians in Alexandria has been published by Columbia University Press.  From the publisher: "Nationality is the most important legal mechanism sorting and classifying the world's population today. An individual's place 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 that it arose just a century ago. In Identifying with Nationality, he uses the Mediterranean city of Alexandria to develop a genealogy of the nation and the formation of the modern national subject. Identifying 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. The result was a system that continues to define and divide people through status, mobility, and residency."  Congratulations Will!