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Who Are You?: Identification, Deception, and Surveillance in Early Modern Europe
Who are you? And how can you prove it? How were individuals described and identified by people who had never seen them before, in the centuries before photography and fingerprinting, in a world without centralized administrations, where names and addresses were constantly changing?
In Who Are You? , Valentin Groebner traces the early modern European history of identification practices and identity papers. The documents, seals, stamps, and signatures were ― and are ― powerful tools that created the double of a person in writ and bore the indelible signs of bureaucratic authenticity. Ultimately, as Groebner lucidly explains, they revealed as much about their makers’ illustory fantasies as they did about their bearers’ actual identity.
The bureaucratic desire to register and control the population created, from the sixteenth century onward, an intricate administrative system for tracking individual identities. Most important, the proof of one’s identity was intimately linked and determined by the identification papers the authorities demanded and endlessly supplied. At the same time, these papers and practices gave birth to two uncanny doppelgängers of administrative identity the spy who craftily forged official documents and passports, and the impostor who dissimulated and mimed any individual he so desired.
Through careful research and powerful narrative, Groebner recounts the complicated and bizarre stories of the many ways in which identities were stolen, created, and doubled. Groebner argues that identity papers cannot be interpreted literally as pure and simple documents. They are themselves pieces of history, histories of individuals and individuality, papers that both document and transform their owner’s identity ― from Renaissance vagrants and gypsies to the illegal immigrants of today who remain “sans papiers,” without papers.
In Who Are You? , Valentin Groebner traces the early modern European history of identification practices and identity papers. The documents, seals, stamps, and signatures were ― and are ― powerful tools that created the double of a person in writ and bore the indelible signs of bureaucratic authenticity. Ultimately, as Groebner lucidly explains, they revealed as much about their makers’ illustory fantasies as they did about their bearers’ actual identity.
The bureaucratic desire to register and control the population created, from the sixteenth century onward, an intricate administrative system for tracking individual identities. Most important, the proof of one’s identity was intimately linked and determined by the identification papers the authorities demanded and endlessly supplied. At the same time, these papers and practices gave birth to two uncanny doppelgängers of administrative identity the spy who craftily forged official documents and passports, and the impostor who dissimulated and mimed any individual he so desired.
Through careful research and powerful narrative, Groebner recounts the complicated and bizarre stories of the many ways in which identities were stolen, created, and doubled. Groebner argues that identity papers cannot be interpreted literally as pure and simple documents. They are themselves pieces of history, histories of individuals and individuality, papers that both document and transform their owner’s identity ― from Renaissance vagrants and gypsies to the illegal immigrants of today who remain “sans papiers,” without papers.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
352 pages, Hardcover
Published March 27, 2007
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November 27, 2010
An interesting book on the question of identity from 1200 through the modern times. Mostly concentrating on the Middle Ages and Renaissance. It talks about people's identities, what they consisted of in various periods, how they demonstrated them, and why they demonstrated them.
It mostly deals with the period 1200 through 1600, with some discussion of later periods through about 2005. It traces the history of European public identity. What identify was considered to be, who was identified, why they needed to be identified and how they were identified. Groebner provides some very interesting anecdotes. He talks about the man who traveled throughout Europe in 1998 on his British Honduras passport. It was 9 months before someone realized that there was no such country. He also discussed the implications of incidents such as the sinking of a ship near Sicily in 1996 withe resultant drowing of hundreds of undocumented/illegal immigrants passengers. SInce the people were undocumented, they did not exist in the eyes of the neighboring nations. Because of this, it was years before those states even accepted that there had been a mass drowning. He also traces the rise of national beauracracies to mnage the identity apparatus of nations, and their various approaches, successes and failures.
The book does have several negatives.
First, the book was apparently translated from its original German to English. Please note that I do not speak German, nor can I translate. So I have tremendous respect for those who can. However, I feel that the book could have benefitted from another pass by an English speaker. The book's language is generally workable. However, I found the English clumsy, occasionally halting and lacking a good flow.In the marketplace of ideas, the langauge may end up excluding readers.
Second, the words, terms, and phrases in the book were often obscure, at best. I am not uneducated (2 US bachelors degrees and a master degree) and yet there were many words that were not familiar to me. Some, I have not yet tracked down ("urnarritive"). Others are not in common usage and may have more common English alternatives (Polysemy). Others may be unique to specific academic circles. Some may in fact simply be transliterated German words. None seem to have a definition. A glossery, or pointers to a useful third-party glossary might have benefited the reader. Additionally, some of the Latin/German/Spanish/French (with the German, Spanish, and French appearing in modern and historic dialects) are translated into English and some are not.
Third and finally, the copy I purchased is missing a number of pages through-out the first and second chapters. The missing pages were blank. The missing pages did not benefit this reader in understand the author's writing. Certainly, before reading this book, I would recommend that the reader exercise due diligence and verify that the entire book is present. I am certain it will improve the reading experience.
All in all, the book is an interesting survey into parts of the issue of identity. It's clumsy English is a distraction and detracts from the reader's comprehension of the author's presentation. But the ideas put forward by the author are interesting and worthy of reader's efforts.
It mostly deals with the period 1200 through 1600, with some discussion of later periods through about 2005. It traces the history of European public identity. What identify was considered to be, who was identified, why they needed to be identified and how they were identified. Groebner provides some very interesting anecdotes. He talks about the man who traveled throughout Europe in 1998 on his British Honduras passport. It was 9 months before someone realized that there was no such country. He also discussed the implications of incidents such as the sinking of a ship near Sicily in 1996 withe resultant drowing of hundreds of undocumented/illegal immigrants passengers. SInce the people were undocumented, they did not exist in the eyes of the neighboring nations. Because of this, it was years before those states even accepted that there had been a mass drowning. He also traces the rise of national beauracracies to mnage the identity apparatus of nations, and their various approaches, successes and failures.
The book does have several negatives.
First, the book was apparently translated from its original German to English. Please note that I do not speak German, nor can I translate. So I have tremendous respect for those who can. However, I feel that the book could have benefitted from another pass by an English speaker. The book's language is generally workable. However, I found the English clumsy, occasionally halting and lacking a good flow.In the marketplace of ideas, the langauge may end up excluding readers.
Second, the words, terms, and phrases in the book were often obscure, at best. I am not uneducated (2 US bachelors degrees and a master degree) and yet there were many words that were not familiar to me. Some, I have not yet tracked down ("urnarritive"). Others are not in common usage and may have more common English alternatives (Polysemy). Others may be unique to specific academic circles. Some may in fact simply be transliterated German words. None seem to have a definition. A glossery, or pointers to a useful third-party glossary might have benefited the reader. Additionally, some of the Latin/German/Spanish/French (with the German, Spanish, and French appearing in modern and historic dialects) are translated into English and some are not.
Third and finally, the copy I purchased is missing a number of pages through-out the first and second chapters. The missing pages were blank. The missing pages did not benefit this reader in understand the author's writing. Certainly, before reading this book, I would recommend that the reader exercise due diligence and verify that the entire book is present. I am certain it will improve the reading experience.
All in all, the book is an interesting survey into parts of the issue of identity. It's clumsy English is a distraction and detracts from the reader's comprehension of the author's presentation. But the ideas put forward by the author are interesting and worthy of reader's efforts.
Displaying 1 of 1 review