Citizenship has been generally associated with political institutions firmly situated in the post-1789 history of Europe. In Citizens without Nations, however, Maarten Prak breaks new ground by examining the nature and development of pre-modern citizenship in a global context. Arguing that ‘the role of ordinary people in urban politics has been systematically underestimated’, Prak shifts focus away from nations to an earlier tradition of citizenship that predates the French Revolution (p. 5). Central to the monograph is Prak's critique of Weber's typology of European and Asian cities, which contrasted the self-organization of medieval European citizens to the autocratic rule that dominated their Asian counterparts. Instead, Prak persuasively demonstrates that although the ideological concept of citizenship did not exist in places like China or the Ottoman Empire, the set of practices associated with it were experienced in cities across the globe. What results, then, is an ambitious and provocative book that weaves together an impressive range of research from the city-state in Italy to the Spanish colony in Mexico.

The book unfolds in three parts. The first part discusses the dimensions of citizenship in European cities. In chapters 1–5, Prak considers a variety of formal and informal civic institutions, including burgher rights, neighbourhood associations, guilds, civic militias and confraternities. Challenging the traditional view of oligarchic rule, he maintains that these institutions both encouraged and facilitated widespread democratic participation. The addition of fellowships and non-religious societies would have further enhanced Prak's discussion on this point. In London, for example, several occupational societies were formed in the early modern period that resembled the craft guild system but did not grant members formal citizenship.

In the second part, Prak adjusts his aim to look more closely at the nature of citizenship in Italy, the Netherlands and England. In each chapter, he analyses the relationship between cities and states on a country-by-country basis, focusing primarily upon the development of citizen involvement in both civic and national affairs. The relatively harmonious integration of city and state in these cases is contrasted with the final chapter of the section, which examines citizenship in the Holy Roman Empire, France, Spain, Poland and Prussia. Here, he argues, citizenship had little influence on state politics. Throughout each section, Prak is to be commended for the deftness in which he draws diverse experiences of citizenship together without overgeneralizing their similarities.

The third part of the book extends its scope to examine urban politics in China and the Ottoman Empire, as well as European colonies in the Americas. We are reminded that citizenship should be defined as a set of practices, and that many Asian cities had a multitude of organizations that closely resembled European civic institutions, including guilds, neighbourhoods and religious fraternities. Prak also contrasts Spanish colonies in South America with English colonies in North America to propose that citizenship was not exported as a one-size-fits-all experience, and that local influences, such as race relations, had an important role to play in how it was manifested abroad. It is important to note, however, that these chapters comprise the shortest section of the book. The majority of its 306 pages concentrate on European cities in the ‘Blue Banana’ region, which understandably reflects the author's long-held interest and research there. Nevertheless, Prak's compelling analysis of citizenship outside Europe, though brief, should inspire urban historians to view the topic as a fruitful area of future study.

Overall, this is an engrossing and authoritative account that successfully demonstrates the global nature of citizenship and, for the most part, its promotion of social welfare in the medieval and early modern period. Nonetheless, a few issues remain. Prak has a sharp awareness of the ways in which women were formally barred from citizenship, especially concerning the decline in their status within guilds over the period. However, a more comprehensive analysis of how women participated in the civic environment outside their legal constraints – as petitioners, for example – would have been a refreshing break from previous literature that pauses only to observe their institutional exclusion. Also, as Prak notes, the population of cities across the globe ballooned in the early modern period, which greatly altered their size and shape. In many cases, this resulted in shifting boundaries, both culturally and spatially, of what was meant by ‘the City’. Although Prak touches upon suburban politics in his case-study of London in the 1630s, the book lacks a deeper discussion of how citizenship was experienced and practised in jurisdictions outside the bounds of the City of London. These issues, however, do not detract from the significant value of the book. Other than its historical implications, Prak's observations about pre-modern citizenship carry important lessons in the political climate today. The book is highly recommended to scholars in the field.