Cosmopolitanism and the Enlightenment
Published on 27. February 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
342 pages
978-1-009-30532-7 (ISBN)
Description
As we face new global challenges - from climate change to the international political order - the need to re-examine the historical roots of cosmopolitanism and liberal principles on a global scale has become increasingly central to the political conversation. Cosmopolitanism and the Enlightenment brings together leading scholars in cultural history, the history of ideas and global politics in order to reassess the complexity of cosmopolitanism during the Enlightenment and its various interpretations over time. Through a fresh and revisionist perspective, the volume explores issues of universalism and cultural diversity, the idea of civilization, race, gender, empire, colonialism, global inequality, national patriotism, international and civil conflict, and other forms of political discourse, challenging the simple negative stereotype that the Enlightenment was inevitably hierarchical and Eurocentric. This timely intervention into the debate about the legacy of the Enlightenment highlights both the plurality and the continuing relevance of Enlightened cosmopolitanism to contemporary global concerns.
Reviews / Votes
'These essays, together with the superb introduction by Rubies and Safier, provide a probing, thoughtful look at the ever relevant subject of Enlightenment cosmopolitanism, informed by cutting-edge research and inspired by the classic works of Anthony Pagden.' David Bell, Princeton University '... the range of topics and viewpoints offered by its contributors, the quality of their research, and the extensive documentation to sources they provide will make the book a valuable reference and point of departure for further scholarship in the field.' David Allen Harvey, Princeton University, History of European IdeasMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
458 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-009-30532-7 (9781009305327)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Joan-Pau Rubies | Neil Safier
Cosmopolitanism and the Enlightenment
Book
03/2023
Cambridge University Press
€134.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Joan-Pau Rubies | Neil Safier
Cosmopolitanism and the Enlightenment
E-Book
03/2023
Cambridge University Press
€123.99
Available for download
Persons
Joan-Pau Rubies is ICREA Research Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, and was previously Reader at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He directs a research project on the history of Ethnographies, Cultural Encounters and Religious Missions in the Early Modern world and has published extensively on these topics. He is currently writing a monograph on travel writing and the origins of the Enlightenment, and a book on missionary ethnographies in the early modern world. Neil Safier is Associate Professor of History at Brown University, where he served from 2013-21 as Beatrice and Julio Mario Santo Domingo Director and Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library. He is the author of Measuring the New World: Enlightenment Science and South America (2008) and a range of articles on the history of natural history, environmental studies, and the trans-imperial history of the tropical world, especially South America. He is currently working on a book that connects Brazilian natural history with the plantation cultures of the eighteenth-century Caribbean, including sugar, indigo, coffee, and cotton.
Content
Introduction: cosmopolitanism and the enlightenment Joan-Pau Rubies and Neil Safier; 1. Enlightenment cosmopolitanism in perspective: diversity, natural law and reason in the work of John Locke Daniel Carey; 2. The Cosmopolitan paradox: travel, anthropology and the problem cultural diversity in early modern thought Joan-Pau Rubies; 3. Diderot's philosophical history and the history of 'monstrous nature' Girolamo Imbruglia; 4. Geographies of cosmopolitanism: cartography, natural history and indigenous knowledge in the long eighteenth century Neil Safier; 5. The imperial, global (cosmopolitan) dimensions of non-elite colonial scribal cultures in the early modern Iberian Atlantic Jorge Canizares-Esguerra; 6. Gendered Cosmopolitanism? The history of women and the science of man in the Scottish enlightenment Silvia Sebastiani; 7. Cosmopolitanism and the creation of patriotic identities in the European enlightenment: the case of Pietro Napoli Signorelli and his Storia critica de' teatri antichi e moderni Melissa Calaresu; 8. A Cosmopolitanism of countervailing powers: resistance against global domination in the political thought of Immanuel Kant and Quobna Ottobah Cugoano Sankar Muthu; 9. Cosmopolitanism and civil war David Armitage; Afterword: cosmopolitanism and its discontents Anthony Pagden.