Maarten Prak is Professor of Social and Economic History at the Department of History and Art History, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands. He is on the Board of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

• Introduction: worlds of citizenship; Part I. Dimensions of Citizenship in European Towns: 1. Formal citizenship; 2. Urban governance: citizens and their authorities; 3. Economic citizenship through the guilds; 4. Welfare and the civic community; 5. Citizens, soldiers, and civic militias; Part II. Cities and States, Or: The Varieties of European Citizenship: Introduction to Part II; 6. Italian city-states and their citizens; 7. The Dutch Republic: the federalisation of citizenship; 8. Citizenship in England: from the Reformation to the Glorious Revolution; 9. Cities and states in Continental Europe; Part III. Citizenship Outside Europe: Introduction to Part III; 10. Original citizenship in China and the Middle East; 11. Recreating European citizenship in the Americas; Conclusions: citizenship before and beyond the French Revolution.

'A profoundly original book. Prak shows how much of what historians and social scientists think they know about citizenship and the rise of democratic politics is simply wrong. Uncovering the errors that have blinded so many, he proceeds to construct a historically grounded foundation for a new understanding of the meaning of citizenship that instructs us about the past and the present.' Jan de Vries, University of California, Berkeley