How did subalterns come to identify as members of nation states? Until recently, most studies of nation-state formation have attempted to answer this question by focusing on the spread of nationalist ideology and the construction of collective identity. Yet in his groundbreaking study of the rise of nationality in Alexandria, Egypt, Hanley traces the origins of our current international system to the spread of nationality laws in the late nineteenth century and their role in the creation of the modern national subject. Hanley shows that through the individual's engagement with private international law, the nation-state system became a lived reality for non-elites. Alexandria's trans-imperial setting serves as an ideal case study because it was in this city that multiple empires used nationality laws to compete for sovereignty over individual bodies, teaching subalterns that identifying with nationality was the primary means to protection. The book is thus not about the construction of national identity per se, but rather the spread of national identification, which Hanley argues had become the dominant category of legal identification in Alexandria by World War I.

In richly detailed and beautifully written chapters, Hanley highlights the fluid and contested nature of nationality status before World War I, showing the reader how nationality came into being on a contingent, case-by-case basis. His work illustrates how nationality laws created various socio-legal hierarchies in Alexandria, distinguishing the protected categories of European-born foreigners, imperial subjects, and protégés from the unprotected category of locals. Hanley primarily relies on the records of consular courts, which handled criminal cases involving non-natives as well as civil and commercial cases involving nationals of the same consulate. Hanley may have chosen to focus on this body of records due to the well-known challenges that scholars have faced when attempting to access the records of the Native Courts and Mixed Tribunals in Egypt. However, given that the purpose of the book is not to tell a history of subalterns in Alexandria but rather to chart the rise of nationality, this choice of records is a strength rather than a limitation. Non elites' instrumental use of consular courts to seek protection from local authorities or privilege over natives contributed to making nationality the dominant legal status in Alexandria. Non-elite engagement with private international law thus directly contributed to the hegemony of nationality in Alexandria.

The structure of Identifying with Nationality reflects the way in which the spread of nationalilty in Alexandria was both a top-down and bottom-up process. Part 1 introduces the reader to Alexandria's “vulgar cosmopolitan” setting and to the field of private international law. Part 2 analyzes how individuals in Alexandria came to identify with nationality through both state practices of identification papers and censuses, as well as personal initiatives relating to money and marriage. Part 3 examines the fluid and contested nature of six socio-legal statuses in Alexandria in the late nineteenth century: Europeans, non-European foreigners, protégés, undesirables, Ottomans, and locals. While each chapter documents fascinating historical struggles between individuals and state authorities, Chapters Five and Eight are especially rich because they capture moments in which individuals used nationality to challenge state power and social hierarchies. In the final chapter of Part 3, Hanley builds on his analysis of the unintended effects of empire by discussing the transformation of localness from a category originally defined by the absence of protection to one that began to take on positive meaning around the turn of the century. The local populace, in witnessing the rights and protection granted to foreigners, came to learn that it was through nationality that they could become rights-bearing individuals.

Hanley's work convincingly shows that the rights and privileges exercised by foreigners in Alexandria played a key role in the naturalization of nationality in Egypt after World War I, leading to the first codification of Egyptian nationality law in 1926. In his epilogue, Hanley points to World War I as a turning point, yet the reader is taken from turn-of-the-century Alexandria to 1926 with no discussion of nationality during the war. The reader is thus left wondering precisely what role the war played in the naturalization of nationality in Egypt. Yet this small gap in the narrative does not detract from the book's tremendous contribution. In addition to establishing a new framework for the study of “cosmopolitan” port cities, Hanley sheds new light on the origins and spread of the nation-state system in the Mediterranean world. Moreover, despite the fact that the purpose of the book is not to tell a subaltern history of Alexandria, it contributes significantly to our knowledge of non-elites in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Alexandria. Identifying with Nationality is a very welcome addition to a surprisingly small body of scholarship on Alexandria and an essential read for any scholar working on Mediterranean port cities, Egypt under colonial rule, or the spread of the nation-state system in the Middle East.