Yet the force at work here is not the logic of exclusion; as Isin writes: “The logic of exclusion assumes that the categories of strangers and outsiders, such as women, slaves, peasants, metics, immigrants, refugees, and clients, preexisted citizenship and that, once defined, it excluded them” (p. 3). Instead, his central claim in each of these genealogies is that the city in history functions as a “difference machine.” Rather than acting as a container that holds together groups marked by preexisting differences, he contends, the city is an active agent in creating those groups and differences. In keeping with Foucault's ideas about the relational character of power, groups in the city exist only in relation to one another; otherness is not outside of but is instead a condition of citizenship (p. 49).

For Isin, “being political” is the “moment when the naturalness of the dominant virtues is called into question and their arbitrariness revealed” (p. 275). His point of departure, then, is neither the stories told about citizenship by victorious citizens nor the voices of those excluded from that category. Rather, he describes the tactics by which all such groups are constituted; in his words, he examines the “solidaristic, agonistic, and alienating strategies and technologies” that together help forge, police, and transform various identities and their attendant values (p. 36). These strategies and technologies range from the symposia and the census used to fashion citizens in Athens and Rome to the rites and rituals utilized by the sansculottes to redefine the parameters of metropolitan citizenship. Isin's command of a terrific array of secondary literature results in intricately textured portraits of cities that are not only spaces but also processes, where citizens and their others are made and unmade.

The book is not without its weaknesses, however. First, Isin's sweep through history leaves the reader wishing for more specificity in each particular period, especially given that genealogy is the declared method. To give one example, he provocatively includes “squeegeers” as antithetical to the aesthetic and political space of citizenship in the cosmopolis. A recent addition to the urban landscape, a squeegeer—rather than just asking for change—will stake out busy intersections, offering to clean motorists’ windshields in exchange for money. This enterprising spirit has been a source of consternation for both suburban commuters and city planners, who want to find ways to monitor, regulate, or eliminate these activities. Isin is correct in identifying squeegeers as important and liminal figures in debates over what counts as citizenship; however, his treatment of the subject is diminished by the fact that squeegeers are included with “beggars, refugees, and hooligans” in a section that lasts only two pages. What are the “certain rules and regulations” squeegeers are encouraged to obey? How precisely have they been prompted to think of themselves as “entrepreneurs,” rather than “rights-bearing citizens” (p. 272)? This is just one of many instances where Isin could have provided rich genealogical detail and does not, with the result that this is a suggestive and yet ultimately unsatisfying analysis.

Second, Isin's focus on the contingent and relational qualities of social groups often renders the conditions of domination and subordination (a binary that he would surely reject for its static simplicity) too fluid and fleeting. In emphasizing “complex and variegated” rather than “rigid and dichotomous” cityscapes (p. 267), he downplays the (sometimes literally) concrete reifications of economic and cultural poverty in, for example, housing, welfare, and transportation policy. As a result, Being Political leaves important normative questions uncovered yet unexplored. Specifically, I was left wondering if some modes of being political are more just, or more democratic, than others, and how those modes might be encouraged in the space of the cosmopolis, which is increasingly stratified by race and income. That is, Isin never addresses the great divide between the professional architect who designs urban space and the squeegeer who attempts to wash the architect's windshield every afternoon. Here, his analysis would have benefited from a more sustained engagement with contemporary democratic theory.

Finally, Isin's descriptions of urban centers often seem curiously detached from their surroundings. Although cities are certainly crucial spaces for the production of citizenship, what is the relationship between urban and rural citizens? Are the technologies for the production of citizenship different in places that do not fit the description of a “cosmopolis,” or do urban practices automatically define the national character of citizenship? Moreover, how has the increasingly decentralized character of contemporary cities affected the production of citizenship as alterity? As urban regions look less and less like the quintessential nineteenth-century metropolis, are citizens easier or more difficult to define?

Highly charged definitions of citizenship are presently at the forefront of public consciousness as they form the basis for significant policy decisions, such as the recently passed Patriot Act and the reauthorization of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) legislation. (Does citizenship require a willingness to be surveilled in the name of the greater good? Does it require heterosexual, two-parent families?) Despite the reservations expressed here, Isin's book is a valuable resource for those interested in the complex construction of citizenship. In analyzing the city's role in the production of alterity, Being Political helps us assess the complicated set of values, spaces, and relationships that together constitute our current understanding of what it means to be a citizen.