Early Modern Citizenship in Europe and the Americas: A Twenty Years’ Conversation

This text interrogates the relations between a book and its readers. It describes why I wrote Defining Nations: Immigrants and Citizens in Early Modern Spain and Spanish America some twenty years ago in terms of what I wanted to ask and answer, and it depicts how readers have used it since. Besides considering how the study of early modern citizenship changed over time, the aim is to encourage a conversation regarding how scholarship develops, as well as invite authors to reflect on their own successes and failures.