Description: "This book provides the first intellectual history of cosmopolitan ideas in the early modern age. The roots of modern cosmopolitanism can be traced back to as early as the 1500s when a meta-narrative and awareness of the cosmopolitan idea came into existence. Unearthing occurrences of cosmopolitan language in popular media and analysing the writings of leading thinkers, Leigh T.I. Penman illustrates how cosmopolitanism was not, as previously thought, purely secular and inclusive but could be sacred and exclusive too. And, significantly, this book reveals the extent to which these contesting ideas of cosmopolitanism influenced the modern concept of the cosmopolitan"--
Brief description: Leigh T.I. Penman is Research Fellow, Monash Indigenous Studies Centre, Monash University, Australia. He is the author of Hope and Heresy: The Problem of Chiliasm in Lutheran Confessional Culture(2019), as well as numerous articles concerning early modern religious and intellectual history.
Review Quotes:
"Penman has given us an ambitious, learned essay, written with a generous ambit and a light touch; it is a good antidote to starry-eyed accounts of the Enlightenment, and an invitation to historians to dig our genealogies deeper." --Journal of British Studies
"Leigh Penman's beautifully written book traces the long forgotten roots and fascinating history of a concept that has become essential to our vocabulary. Along the way, he reveals several surprising twists and turns that make the book not only erudite but a very enjoyable read." --Helena Rosenblatt, Professor of History and French, City University of New York, USA "Penman's carefully crafted study offers important insights into the early history of a guiding concept that is highly controversial in the modern and postmodern eras." --German Historical Institute London Bulletin