The most recommended citizenship books

Who picked these books? Meet our 19 experts.

19 authors created a book list connected to citizenship, and here are their favorite citizenship books.
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Book cover of Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era

Jennifer Mittelstadt Author Of Rise of the Military Welfare State

From my list on military, war, and society in 20th century US.

Why am I passionate about this?

I never thought I’d become a historian of the US military. Like most Americans raised in the era of the All-Volunteer Force, I grew up with no close personal connections to the US military. Yet its symbols, metaphors, and power flooded my life, from movies to games to politics. Every encounter with a memoir, an operational history, a biography, or a government study offered a new understanding of how the US military came to play such a vital role in US society, and how US society in turn shaped practices and people in the military. These five histories did more than any others to shape my understanding of the military’s relationship to American society in the twentieth century.

Jennifer's book list on military, war, and society in 20th century US

Jennifer Mittelstadt Why did Jennifer love this book?

Torchbearers is a pathbreaking history of the fight for American democracy during World War I, told from the perspective of African American servicemen who joined, fought, and returned from battle. Already engaged in conflict over civil rights in the US, African Americans took seriously the call to “make the world safe for democracy.” Through writing, activism, and organizing, they linked their domestic fight to the foreign fight against democracy’s enemies. Perhaps no other group in the US, Williams shows, was poised to engage the very biggest questions that animated the war – questions of citizenship, rights, freedom, and empire – as were African Americans. And their wartime service, he shows, was the crucible for the long freedom movement that followed.  

By Chad L. Williams,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Torchbearers of Democracy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On April 2, 1917, Woodrow Wilson thrust the United States into World War I by declaring, ""The world must be made safe for democracy."" For the 380,000 African American soldiers who fought and labored in the global conflict, these words carried life or death meaning. Relating stories bridging the war and postwar years, spanning the streets of Chicago and the streets of Harlem, from the battlefields of the American South to the battlefields of the Western Front, Chad L. Williams reveals the central role of African American soldiers in World War I and how they, along with race activists and…


Book cover of Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine

Lior B. Sternfeld Author Of Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran

From my list on Jewish histories of the Middle East.

Why am I passionate about this?

I always felt that Middle Eastern studies is different from other fields of history. Its ever-presence in our life, the news cycle, religious life, political life, yet, because of language barriers and other filters, there’s a gap in knowledge that is highly conspicuous when forming one’s opinion. When I started my academic training, I felt like I was swimming in this ocean of histories that were completely unknown to me. I studied the Jewish histories of the region only later in my training and found that this gap is even more visible when talking about the history of Jews in the Middle East, because of misconceptions of antisemitism, the Israel-Palestine conflict, political tilt of media outlet, and more. For me, entering this field was a way to understand long-term processes in my own society, and expand the body of scholarship to enrich the public conversation on top of the academic one.

Lior's book list on Jewish histories of the Middle East

Lior B. Sternfeld Why did Lior love this book?

Students of Middle East studies learn a lot about Ottoman history, specifically about the Ottoman Empire's last decades, before WWI. But historians gave very little attention to the Arab provinces of the empire in comparison to Istanbul and the imperial center. In this book, Campos presented the fascinating case of Ottoman Palestine. Campos shows the most convincing rebuttal for the theories that attributed no Ottoman identity in the peripheries. The fantastic picture of Jerusalem during the last years of the empire can teach us a lot about the relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Palestine, the understanding of national and imperial frameworks at the turn of the century, and the optimistic reader may find ideas to deadlock conflicts in the 21st century.

By Michelle U. Campos,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Ottoman Brothers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In its last decade, the Ottoman Empire underwent a period of dynamic reform, and the 1908 revolution transformed the empire's 20 million subjects into citizens overnight. Questions quickly emerged about what it meant to be Ottoman, what bound the empire together, what role religion and ethnicity would play in politics, and what liberty, reform, and enfranchisement would look like. Ottoman Brothers explores the development of Ottoman collective identity, tracing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews became imperial citizens together. In Palestine, even against the backdrop of the emergence of the Zionist movement and Arab nationalism, Jews and Arabs cooperated in local…


Book cover of Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State

Ian Lustick Author Of Paradigm Lost: From Two-State Solution to One-State Reality

From my list on origins of Israeli policies toward Palestinians.

Why am I passionate about this?

I began studying the Israeli-Palestinian relationship as an idealistic Brandeis University student living in Jerusalem in 1969, when I directly encountered the Palestinian problem and the realities of the occupation. Trained at Berkeley to be a political scientist I devoted my life to finding a path to a two-state solution. In 2010 I reached the tragic conclusion that the “point of no return” toward Israeli absorption of the occupied territories had indeed been passed. Bored with the ideas that my old way of thinking was producing, I forced myself to think, as Hannah Arendt advised, “without a bannister.” Paradigm Lost is the result.

Ian's book list on origins of Israeli policies toward Palestinians

Ian Lustick Why did Ian love this book?

For the first eighteen years of Israel’s existence most Arabs in the country were ruled by a military administration. It was formally abolished only a year before the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 and the establishment of Israeli military rule in those territories. The story of that early military government is not well known, except by specialists. But with the publication of Shira Robinson’s book, based on declassified archival material, we now know the details of how Arab citizens of Israel were subordinated, exploited, and manipulated, under false rationales of security concerns, in order to bolster the political position of the dominant Labor Party, to advance Zionist goals of land acquisition and subsidization of Jewish settlement, and, as the title of the book suggests, to help present Israel as a “liberal” state while concealing its settler colonialist dynamics.

By Shira Robinson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Citizen Strangers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Following the 1948 war and the creation of the state of Israel, Palestinian Arabs comprised just fifteen percent of the population but held a much larger portion of its territory. Offered immediate suffrage rights and, in time, citizenship status, they nonetheless found their movement, employment, and civil rights restricted by a draconian military government put in place to facilitate the colonization of their lands. Citizen Strangers traces how Jewish leaders struggled to advance their historic settler project while forced by new international human rights norms to share political power with the very people they sought to uproot.

For the next…


Book cover of Broadening the Dementia Debate: Towards Social Citizenship

Julian C. Hughes Author Of Thinking Through Dementia

From my list on personhood and dementia.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an old age psychiatrist, I was naturally interested in dementia. But I’m also trained to doctoral level in philosophy. I’ve been both an honorary professor of philosophy of ageing (at Newcastle) and a professor of old age psychiatry (at Bristol). Whilst training in psychiatry at Oxford, I came across the work of Tom Kitwood. Subsequently, I’ve become great friends with Steve Sabat. His work and Kitwood’s brought home to me the complexity of personhood and its relevance to how we care for and think about people living with dementia. And the more you consider it, the more the notion of personhood broadens out to include citizenship and human rights.

Julian's book list on personhood and dementia

Julian C. Hughes Why did Julian love this book?

Sabat deepened the work of Kitwood on personhood (or selfhood). These authors broaden it by showing how it integrates with the idea of citizenship. In my work, I’ve argued that as persons we are situated embodied agents. In a very exciting way, Bartlett and O’Connor show how people living with dementia are situated in a social and political context in which they can act as agents to bring about change. Indeed, since the book was written, increasingly we’ve seen this come to fruition. As noticed and predicted by these authors, people living with dementia do not have to be seen as ‘care recipients’, they can be (and are) activists, advocates, authors, artists, employees, friends, lovers, speakers, taxpayers, voters and a lot more besides. Social citizenship is an irresistible idea. 

By Ruth Bartlett, Deborah O'Connor,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Broadening the Dementia Debate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dementia has been widely debated from the perspectives of biomedicine and social psychology. This book broadens the debate to consider the experiences of men and women with dementia from a sociopolitical perspective. It brings to the fore the concept of social citizenship, exploring what it means within the context of dementia and using it to re-examine the issue of rights, status(es), and participation. Most importantly, the book offers fresh and practical insights into how a citizenship framework can be applied in practice. It will be of interest to health and social care professionals, policy makers, academics and researchers and people…


Book cover of The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State

Sarah E. Igo Author Of The Known Citizen: A History of Privacy in Modern America

From my list on identity documents in the modern world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an American intellectual historian and professor at Vanderbilt University. I’ve long been fascinated by the history and politics of data: the question of how publicly available knowledge shapes societies as well as individual selves. It’s led me to research the effects of popular polls and statistics on mid-century U.S. culture and to write about how ever-advancing techniques for “knowing” citizens shaped modern privacy sensibilities. My current obsession is with official identity documents—how they infiltrate people’s lives in ways that are at once bureaucratic and curiously intimate. The books I’ve selected lay bare the promise and the peril of documentation in wonderfully vivid detail.

Sarah's book list on identity documents in the modern world

Sarah E. Igo Why did Sarah love this book?

Torpey’s book, first published in 2000, is now a classic. With it, he helped open up a whole field of inquiry into the history of official documents and identification techniques that both constrain—and make conceivable—modern society. Here, think of street addresses, fingerprints, birth certificates, credit records, driver’s licenses, tax forms, and visas. For Torpey, the passport, “that little paper booklet with the power to open international doors,” is a window into modern nation states’ interest in regulating movement. For his readers, it is a bracing reminder of how recent those controls are and how habituated we denizens of the 21st century have become to showing our papers.

By John C. Torpey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Invention of the Passport as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book presents the first detailed history of the modern passport and why it became so important for controlling movement in the modern world. It explores the history of passport laws, the parliamentary debates about those laws, and the social responses to their implementation. The author argues that modern nation-states and the international state system have 'monopolized the 'legitimate means of movement',' rendering persons dependent on states' authority to move about - especially, though not exclusively, across international boundaries. This new edition reviews other scholarship, much of which was stimulated by the first edition, addressing the place of identification documents…


Book cover of The Practice of Citizenship: Black Politics and Print Culture in the Early United States

John Ernest Author Of A Nation Within a Nation: Organizing African American Communities before the Civil War

From my list on early African American community activism.

Why am I passionate about this?

Good question. Why would a white guy be passionate about nineteenth-century African American community building and activism? It’s a long story, but the short version is that by the time I reached graduate school, I could no longer avoid the realization that I had been dramatically miseducated about American history, and that the key to American history—one important key, anyway—is African American history. You can’t understand what it means to be an American if you don’t know this history, and you can’t understand our own very troubled times, or how to respond to these times, how to turn frustration into action, unless you know this history. So I developed my expertise over the years. 

John's book list on early African American community activism

John Ernest Why did John love this book?

This is a fascinating book that deals with one of the central dilemmas in American history—that a nation committed to high ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in a republic made up of people from several lands could also be a nation committed to racial oppression and the denial of fundamental rights. It considers citizenship not as noun but as verb—a dynamic process, not just a legal affiliation. Spires gets at the complexity of American life, explaining approaches to citizenship that required savvy improvisation, community formation, and determined commitment to ideals that were violated by the dominant culture at every turn. Spires explores the tensions, the disagreements over directions and methods, that were part of this collective effort, and the concepts of citizenship that emerged from those productive debates. Among a great many other things, readers will learn a lot about African American intellectual life, writing, and…

By Derrick R. Spires,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Practice of Citizenship as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the years between the American Revolution and the U.S. Civil War, as legal and cultural understandings of citizenship became more racially restrictive, black writers articulated an expansive, practice-based theory of citizenship. Grounded in political participation, mutual aid, critique and revolution, and the myriad daily interactions between people living in the same spaces, citizenship, they argued, is not defined by who one is but, rather, by what one does.
In The Practice of Citizenship, Derrick R. Spires examines the parallel development of early black print culture and legal and cultural understandings of U.S. citizenship, beginning in 1787, with the framing…


Book cover of Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services

Luke Fowler Author Of Democratic Policy Implementation in an Ambiguous World

From my list on how ideas are turned into actions.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m fascinated by the obsession that we as a society have with making policy, but not whether policy works, and how policy is treated as a magic bullet to the social problems that we all care about. But my experience is that it’s not ideas that solve problems; it’s action that solves problems. This fascination has led me to become a professor of public policy and administration, where I have read extensively about this issue for over a decade and written two books and over four dozen articles. My work focuses on how ideas are translated into actions and how those actions impact our communities.

Luke's book list on how ideas are turned into actions

Luke Fowler Why did Luke love this book?

The thing I love about this book is that it illustrates how difficult the jobs of street-level bureaucrats (i.e., public servants working directly with the public at the street level) are.

Being a cop, teacher, social worker, etc. is a lot more complex than what it looks like from the outside because it’s not just about helping citizens; it’s also about navigating all the rules and policies that govern how public services are delivered.

It’s impossible to read this book and not walk away with a respect for how hard those jobs are.

By Michael Lipsky,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Street-Level Bureaucracy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of I'm an Immigrant Too!

Benson Shum Author Of First Night of Howlergarten

From my list on inclusion and being true to yourself.

Why am I passionate about this?

Growing up, I was always the outcast. I wasn't the smartest in class. I wasn't the strongest in sports. I was always the shy kid in the back, trying not to make a noise. But when I made a connection with someone or they made the effort to say hi. I treasured our friendship. I love writing and sharing stories where we are talking about inclusion and building empathy toward each other. I hope you will enjoy these books on the list.

Benson's book list on inclusion and being true to yourself

Benson Shum Why did Benson love this book?

A fun rhyming story about being from somewhere else and now living in Australia. How the country is welcoming of immigrants.

We learn how much more enriched Australia is when we have people, culture, and experiences from around the world living together. And the rhythm and rhyme of the text makes for a sing-song book.

By Mem Fox, Ronojoy Ghosh (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I'm an Immigrant Too! as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From beloved Australian author Mem Fox comes a timely picture book about how all of our lives are enriched by the vibrant cultural diversity immigrants bring to their new communities.

What journeys we have travelled,
from countries near and far!
Together now, we live in peace,
beneath the Southern Star.

Inspired by the plight of immigrants around the world, Mem Fox was moved to write this lyrical and rhyming exploration of the myriad ways immigrants have enriched her home country of Australia. Young readers everywhere will see themselves—and their friends and neighbors—in this powerful and moving picture book.


Book cover of Citizens: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us

Cath Bishop Author Of The Long Win: The Search for a Better Way to Succeed

From my list on reframing success to sustain high performance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been fascinated by the question of ‘what does success look like’ throughout my life: from growing up, to becoming an Olympic rower, to working as a diplomat in high-pressure situations and conflict-affected environments, to becoming a parent, and now my current work as a leadership and culture coach in organisations across business, sport, and education. History and social conventions have led us to define success in ever narrower ways; I wanted to help us understand that and redefine success more meaningfully, for the long-term. I think it’s a question in all our minds - I hope you enjoy the books on this list as you reflect on what success looks like for you!

Cath's book list on reframing success to sustain high performance

Cath Bishop Why did Cath love this book?

Fascinated as I am with definitions of success across society, from sport to business, education to politics, Jon Alexander’s book really fired my brain up with how we could reinvent our political systems in order to better address the challenges of our time. 

Politics is the area where I have found that definitions of success – dominated by winning elections in the short-term – get in the way of effective performance, in this case, governing countries.

Jon Alexander uses practical examples from around the world to show how we could rethink our role as citizens and proactively create collaborative, caring, creative communities, organisations, and nations.

By Jon Alexander, Ariane Conrad,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Citizens as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

MCKINSEY TOP 5 RECOMMENDED READ

'An underground hit' - Best Politics Books, Financial Times

'Jon has one of the few big ideas that's easily applied' - Sam Conniff, Be More Pirate

'A wonderful guide to how to be human in the 21st Century' - Ece Temelkuran, How to Lose a Country: the Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship

Description

Citizens opens up a new way of understanding ourselves and shows us what we must do to survive and thrive as individuals, organisations, and nations.

Over the past decade, Jon Alexander's consultancy, the New Citizenship Project, has helped revitalise some of…


Book cover of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America

Ruth Milkman Author Of Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat

From my list on U.S. immigration policy and politics.

Why am I passionate about this?

I first got seriously interested in immigration when I moved to L.A. in the late 1980s. I had been a sociologist of labor for over a decade already, and now found myself in a city whose working class was overwhelmingly foreign-born. I was amazed to discover that L.A.’s immigrant workers, even the undocumented, were actively organizing into unions and community-based organizations. Trying to understand how this came about, my fascination with the larger dynamics of migration grew, and immigrant labor became central to my research agenda.

Ruth's book list on U.S. immigration policy and politics

Ruth Milkman Why did Ruth love this book?

This is easily the best account of the complex, racialized history of U.S. immigration law, politics, and policy. One of the arguments in it that impressed me most is that the category “illegal aliens”—the “impossible subjects” of the title—barely existed in the pre-World War I years, when almost no European immigrants were turned away from the U.S. (Asians were another story). Ngai also brilliantly analyzes two landmark laws: the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, which dramatically restricted immigration through nationality-based quotas limiting arrivals from Eastern and Southern Europe; and the 1965 Hart-Celler Act, which eliminated the quotas and opened the door to a massive new immigrant influx. This is a densely written book, not an easy read, but no other text has taught me more about this topic.

By Mae M. Ngai,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Impossible Subjects as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy--a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s--its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by…


Book cover of Torchbearers of Democracy: African American Soldiers in the World War I Era
Book cover of Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine
Book cover of Citizen Strangers: Palestinians and the Birth of Israel’s Liberal Settler State

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