The End of Citizenship?
Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization. By Peter J. Spiro. New York: Oxford University Press. 2008. Pp. 194. $29.95.
In Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization, Peter J. Spiro surveys “the lines that mark the boundaries of the human community, the lines that divide Americans from others.” Spiro conducts this inquiry through the lens of citizenship law: Who is born an American citizen? Who can become one? To what extent can one be a citizen both of the United States and of another country? What legal benefits does American citizenship actually confer, and what obligations does it impose? The answers to these questions, he urges, will tell us who is an American, and armed with that understanding, we can better answer the question of “what it means to be an American.”