Citizenship in the Western tradition : Plato to Rousseau /

Interweaving political history and political theory, Riesenberg provides a balanced, analytical, and interpretive view of citizenship from its origins in the Greek polis to the French Revolution. Emphasizing the power of the citizen ideal, he argues that through citizenship people are directed to a higher purpose the public good. Riesenberg lists two categories of citizenship. The "first citizenship" applies to small-scale societies culturally monolithic, hierarchical, and discriminatory that were ascendant in the Western world to the latter part of the 18th century. Whether in the Spartan polis, Italian city-state, or Colonial New England, the citizens, usually a minority element, were actively involved in the affairs of governing a community or state. With the emergence of the "second citizenship," which came to fruition with the American and French Revolutions, citizenship came to be based on birth or specified residence in a large territorial state. Citizens lost the real possibility for gaining virtue through active participation in governing. The author believes voluntarism and occasional office holding at the local level are the primary channels for citizen activity today. This erudite and well-constructed work will interest readers at several levels. General; undergraduate; graduate; faculty. L. E. Oyos; Augustana College (SD)

The concept of citizenship establishes a hierarchy, defining who belongs and who is excluded from the community. It enumerates rights and privileges as well as duties and responsibilities. It is an instrument of social control but also the means of drawing out the best of its members. Focusing on these themes, historian Riesenberg traces the development of the concept of citizenship as it responded to new circumstances and the shifting boundary of the community from the ancient Greek and Roman polis through the medieval and Renaissance Italian city-state to the absolutist state before the French Revolution. Balanced, erudite, and accessible, this work will interest both the specialist and lay reader.-- T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.