Glistening with brilliant turns of phrase, Margaret Somers joins normative citizenship theory, sociological analysis, history and political economy at the highest level of synthesis. Showing how in Hurricane Katrina, socially-excluded US citizens became ‘stateless,’ she argues that to retrieve ‘the right to have rights’ we must challenge ‘romancing the market’, ‘reviling the state.’ –Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University 'In eloquent essays Margaret Somers sheds new light on citizenship as a central concern of modern political life. She shows the tensions, aporias, repressed possibilities, and potential vitality in everyday usage and scholarly conceptualization alike. This is a book scholars have been waiting for and one that should be widely read.' —Craig Calhoun, University Professor of Social Science, NYU 'This book is required reading for anyone interested in the consequences of neo-liberalism for the redefinition of social boundaries. With characteristic elegance, breadth, and theoretical mastery, Somers develops a detailed and complex analysis of processes of social exclusion and inclusion. Knowledge cultures, narratives and the law figure prominently in this new account of the redefinition of social citizenship. A tour de force that will be long remembered ...' —Michele Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies, Professor of Sociology and African and African-American Studies, Author of The Dignity of Working Men: Morality and the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Immigration We don’t need to rush to Tibet to find a citizenry struggling for human rights. Margaret Somers reveals many examples right here in the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina. A brilliant work of theory and history, Genealogies of Citizenship is the most provocative, comprehensive, and original contribution to a social theory of citizenship and rights since Hannah Arendt.—Robin D. G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination Margaret Somers has written a profoundly important book. A great achievement of the past two centuries is the expansion of democratic citizenship. Apologists for market fundamentalism treat its erosion as a minor detail and even a benefit. Somers’ book is a brilliant corrective.—Robert Kuttner, Co-Editor, The American Prospect and author, Everything for Sale. 'With extraordinary erudition and theoretical acuity, Margaret Somers examines the dominant ideas that link many of us together as a community, and marginalize others of us. She argues that the rise of the ideology of market fundamentalism is an assault on democratic rights. Nor is the assault a mere abstraction. Political ideas are embedded in legal practices and economic and social relations. Market fundamentalism is thus a profound threat to democratic possibilities.' —Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York 'Margaret Somers’ Genealogies of Citizenship is a profound and original defense of the moral ideal of socially inclusive democratic citizenship. It combines a sophisticated theoretical and philosophical defense of the normative foundations of this ideal with a range of compelling sociological explorations of the conditions for its robust sustainability. The book’s central provocative thesis - that under-regulated, expansionary markets constitute a deep threat to this form of citizenship - is powerfully and convincingly argued. It deserves to be widely read and debated by anyone worried about the future of democratic society.' — Professor Erik Olin Wright, Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison