Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany

ISBN 9780674131781

Publication date: 08/19/1998

The difference between French and German definitions of citizenship is instructive—and, for millions of immigrants from North Africa, Turkey, and Eastern Europe, decisive. Rogers Brubaker shows how this difference—between the territorial basis of the French citizenry and the German emphasis on blood descent—was shaped and sustained by sharply differing understandings of nationhood, rooted in distinctive French and German paths to nation-statehood.

Praise

Learned, shrewd, and demanding.

—Foreign Affairs
[A] concise and elegant comparison of the national identities of France and Germany, and the citizenship policies that flow from them… Brubaker’s excellent study is the best available guide to the intellectual background of the current crisis in German self-identity.

—Michael Ignatieff, New Republic
Brubaker’s extremely timely book traces the history of citizenship—legal status, heartfelt identity—in France and Germany. Each nation had, and still has, a very different idea of citizenship… Brubaker is erudite and clear, and keeps an acutely open mind-no easy thing in these murky waters.

—Village Voice Literary Supplement
Brubaker brilliantly integrates institutional and cultural analysis. His focus on immigrants and citizenship in France and Germany makes a compelling case for understanding modern national states not only as organizations but also as associations of members.

—Theda Skocpol, Harvard University