What did it mean to be an alien, and in particular an enemy alien, in the interstate conflicts that occurred over the nineteenth century and that climaxed in the First World War? In this ambitious and broad-ranging study, Daniela L. Caglioti highlights the many ways in which belligerent countries throughout the world mobilized populations along the member/non-member divide, redefined inclusion and exclusion, and refashioned notions and practices of citizenship. She examines what it meant to be an alien in wartime, how the treatment of aliens in wartime interfered with sovereignty and the rule of law, and how that treatment affected population policies, individual and human rights, and conceptions of belonging. Concentrating on the gulf between citizens and foreigners and on the dilemma of balancing rights and security in wartime, Caglioti highlights how each country, regardless of its political system, chose national security even if this meant reducing freedom, discriminating among citizens and non-citizens, and violating international law.

‘This book is the only comparative study on enemy aliens in European history and a large step to its global history. This makes the study unique in the field and will be highly welcome to historians, legal scholars and people interested in the history of human rights.'

Dieter Gosewinkel - WZB (Berlin Social Science Center), Center for Global Constitutionalism

‘Caglioti's truly transnational study makes a case for the First World War as the moment when states needed to identify enemy from friend in order to control legal status, seize property, and wage war. She demonstrates that definitions of citizenship, nationality, and rights in 1914–1919 consolidated changes of the nineteenth century and created a blueprint for modern international law regarding nationality.'

Tammy M. Proctor - Utah State University

‘The result of years of meticulous archival research, this is surely the definitive study of the way states in World War I took away the rights of legal residents by labelling them ‘enemy aliens'. Highly relevant for our time, when the chase for ‘enemies within' is once more on in so many countries.'

Erik-Jan Zürcher - Universiteit Leiden

‘… a veritable goldmine of useful comparative information.’

Leonard V. Smith Source: Journal of Modern History