Eight books about the complicated history of U.S. citizenship

Katie Moench is a librarian, runner, and lover of baked goods. A school librarian in the Upper Midwest, Moench lives with her husband and dog and spends her free time drinking coffee, trying new recipes, and adding to her TBR list.

At Book Riot she tagged eight books that show "the idea of citizenship was not something once defined in the early years of the U.S. as a country, but it is rather a nebulous concept that has been defined and redefined over and over since the nation’s beginnings." One title on the list:

Citizens of a Stolen Land: A Ho-Chunk History of the Nineteenth-Century United States by Stephen Kantrowitz

Kantrowitz looks at how the Reconstruction-era discussions of national birthright citizenship failed to consider or provide legal protections to the Indigenous people of the United States. Working from the perspective of a Wisconsin-based tribe of Ho-Chunk peoples, Kantrowitz offers a little-referenced perspective on the emergence of birthright citizenship.

Read about another title on the list.

The Page 99 Test: Citizens of a Stolen Land.

--Marshal Zeringue