BOOK REVIEW CITIZENSHIP: WHAT EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW BY PETER J SPIRO (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS) 192 PAGES. PRICE £13.00 ISBN 9780190917296 KATHERINE G SOUTHWICK * Peter J Spiro’s Citizenship: What Everyone Needs to Know provides a crisp, accessible overview of the concept of citizenship. 1 With the main text at just over 150 pages, Citizenship is pitched to a general audience, but the breadth of its coverage, historical content and occasionally pointed commentary furnish a lucid survey of the subject that could appeal to experts. The book is organised around the ‘status fundamentals of citizenship’, specifically how citizenship is acquired, how it is lost, the rights and obligations of citizenship and how the rise of various forms of international linkages and memberships has facilitated dual citizenship, altered social solidarities and ‘even displace[d] national citizenship’ as a defining marker of identity. 2 With a hint of urgency in the title, the book helps to raise consciousness of citizenship’s importance to our most basic understanding of and relationship to the state, and how citizenship is being tested as a ‘central organizing principle of modern global society and a primary dimension of individual identity’. 3 Spiro acknowledges that Citizenship is more focused on the United States and the ‘Global North’, thus providing only a partial window into developing world practices and the perspective of excluded groups. 4 Nonetheless, the book succeeds in helping to ‘orient critical thinking’ on a topic that touches everyone. 5 Each of the six chapters has a straightforward question and answer format, which is an effective way to enliven and organise the significant amount of historical and technical detail the topic demands. This relatable structure evokes a ‘frequently asked questions’ brochure or webpage that an immigration ministry might produce to help individuals navigate complex procedures. Spiro is clear, however, that Citizenship is ‘not offered as a practical guide, but rather as a lens on the past and future of citizenship and ultimately on the state itself’. 6 Each chapter demonstrates how citizenship is an institution ‘that is contingent and constructed as a marker of membership in a state-based association’. 7 * 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The author is an independent consultant on statelessness, atrocity prevention and rule of law, currently working on a project for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. She holds a JD from Yale Law School and a PhD from the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law. Contact: ksouthwick@ushmm.org. Peter J Spiro, Citizenship: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press 2020). ibid 2–3. ibid. ibid 4. ibid 3. ibid. ibid 2.