A Brief History of Citizenship

Book excerpt: From Plato to Rorty, A Brief History of Citizenship provides a concise survey of the idea of citizenship. All major periods are covered, beginning with Greece and Rome, continuing on to the Middle Ages, the American and French Revolutions, and finally to the modern era. Heater effectively argues that we cannot begin to understand our current conditions until we have an understanding of the initial idea of "the citizen" and how that idea has evolved over the centuries. Important topics covered include how citizenship differs from other forms of sociopolitical identity, the differences between nationality and citizenship, and how multiculturalism has changed our ideas of citizenship in the twenty-first century. This concise and readable book is an ideal introduction to the history of citizenship.