Citizens without Nations: A Response

Abstract

In Citizens without Nations, I argued that national histories have overlooked a large and significant range of citizenship practices that can be found in towns and cities across the pre-modern world. These practices related to local politics (elections, consultations), to economic activities (guilds), to social policies (poor relief), and to military defence (civic militias). This rejoinder addresses three issues raised by critics Jack Goldstone, Katherine Lynch, and R. Bin Wong in relation to my book on urban citizenship in Europe, Asia, and the Americas: ideas, including religion, nations, and economic growth. All three have a lot to do with the implications of global comparisons. Ideas and nations have taken distinct forms in the various world regions. Foregrounding them makes comparisons more difficult. Urban contexts, on the other hand, can be more easily compared. Economic development was introduced in the book as a benchmark to see if and how citizenship arrangements might have impacted prosperity. The economic numbers are, however, still fragile for the pre-industrial era. Therefore, they will have to be supplemented with qualitative studies, which are slowly but surely emerging also outside Europe.