I am thrilled that my book has been reviewed in Migrating Minds: Journal of Cultural Cosmopolitanism by such a prominent scholar and expert on republicanism and early modern political thought, Rachel Hammersley. Do check out her blog, which features many analyses on early modern political thought, republicanism, and James Harrington. My many thanks to the... Continue Reading →
Pollock, Sheldon, Bhabha, Breckenridge — Cosmopolitanisms
Work Cited Pollock, Sheldon, Homi K. Bhabha, Carol A. Breckenridge, and Dipesh Chakrabarty. “Cosmopolitanisms.” In Cosmopolitanism, edited by Carol A. Breckenridge, Sheldon Pollock, Homi K. Bhabha and Dipesh Chakrabarty, 1-14. Durham, NC & London: A Millennial Quartet Book, 2002. Cosmopolitanism as an object of study: practice and theory related in a necessarily open concept Cosmopolitanism... Continue Reading →
Beck, Ulrich — The Cosmopolitan Vision
Work Cited Beck, Ulrich. The Cosmopolitan Vision. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006. Summary of the Introduction The introduction opens with the opposition cosmopolitanism/patriotism. Today this old debate is over because the human condition has become cosmopolitan (2) Cosmopolitanism is no more a controversial rational idea. The “cosmopolitan outlook”: “Global sense, a sense of boundarylessness. An everyday,... Continue Reading →
Tagore — The Home and the World
The book is like a diamond sparkling many facettes. I retain the opposition between patriotism and cosmopolitanism - an opposition also noticed by Martha Nussbaum in her article "Patriotism and Cosmopolitanism" published in the Boston Review, 1994. "I am willing," he said, "to serve my country; but my worship I reserve for Right which is... Continue Reading →
Benhabib, Seyla — The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era
Benhabib, Seyla (2002), The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Global integration is progressing parallel to social disintegration (separatisms, international terrorism, national revival). “Yet wether [sic] we call the current movements “struggles for recognition” (Charles Taylor, Nancy Fraser, and Axel Honneth), “identity/difference movements,” [sic] (Iris Young,... Continue Reading →
O’Brien, Karen — Narratives of Enlightenment
Introduction: cosmopolitanism, narrative, history Cosmopolitan history: “‘Cosmopolitanism’ is no longer a term much favoured by intellectual historians: as an idea, it seems to lack intellectual content; as a category of political thought, it has no referent. [footnote: “the last investigation of this idea was Thomas J. Schlereth]. The term is occasionally invoked by literary and... Continue Reading →
Avenel’s biography of Anacharsis Cloots
Avenel, Georges (1865), Anacharsis Cloots: L’orateur du genre humain, Paris : Librairie internationale. This is one of the very first biography existing on this not so well-known history character of the French Revolution, Anacharsis Cloots. The merit of this book is its weakness: the tone in which it is written. The author is writing in a... Continue Reading →
Bélissa, Marc: Les patriotes européens et l’ordre républicain cosmopolitique 1795-1802
Bélissa analyses the conquests made by the new French Republic in Italy (an IV-V), Switzerland (an VI-VII), Holland (an III), and Belgium (an III-IV). These countries are called “sister-Republics.” Patriots in these “sister-Republics” are European militants and support the French Republic, at first, in its fight against monarchical Europe (91). These patriots have conscious to... Continue Reading →
Dédéyan: le cosmopolitisme européen sous la révolution et l’empire
Dédéyan, Charles (1976) Le cosmopolitisme européen sous la Révolution et l’Empire. 2 vols. Paris: Société d’édition d’enseignement supérieur. One of the rare books of intellectual history about cosmopolitanism in Europe. Written in French, it is focusing on the periods immediately after the Enlightenment: the French Revolution and the first Empire under Napoléon Bonaparte. It is... Continue Reading →
Schlereth: The Cosmopolitan Ideal in Enlightenment Thought
Schlereth, Thomas (1977) The Cosmopolitan Ideal in Enlightenment Thought: Its Form and Function in the Ideas of Franklin, Hume, and Voltaire, 1694-1790. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Thomas J. Schlereth studied how the cosmopolitan ideal had a “noticeable impact on Enlightenment intellectual life throughout the trans-Atlantic community”.[1] But Schlereth does not advance that... Continue Reading →
Todorov: La conquête de l’Amérique, La question de l’autre
Todorov, Tzvetan. La conquête de l'Amérique : la question de l'autre. Paris: Seuil, 1982. In this book, Tzvetan Todorov, renowned Franco-Bulgarian writer and director of research at the Centre National de Recherches (CNRS) in Paris, investigates the Spanish conquest of Central America (the Caribbean and Mexico) during the sixteenth century. His research topic is the... Continue Reading →
