Cosmopolitan Spaces: Europe, Globalization, Theory endeavors a highly innovative reading of both globalization theory and contemporary European transformations. Interpreting cosmopolitanism as a politics of space, Rumford positions his analysis at the intersection of two exciting currents in contemporary social science research: the ‘spatial turn’ in the social sciences and the renewed interest in cosmopolitanism. Rumford elaborates a completely new theoretical framework for understanding the contemporary social and political transformation of Europe, and takes issue with many aspects of the globalization-inspired accounts of Europeanization which remain blind to the spatial dimensions of change. In addition to its compelling reading of cosmopolitanism, Cosmopolitan Spaces: Europe, Globalization, Theory,offers a provocative critique for thinking about Europe in terms of Empire, and advances the startling claim that Europe should be considered ‘postwestern’.

Reviews

Winner of the Association of Borderlands Studies Past Presidents' Gold Award 2010.

Contents

Acknowledgments. 1. Introduction: Cosmopolitanism as a Politics of Space. 2. From a Sociology of the EU to a Social Theory of Europe. 3. The Borders and Borderlands of Europe: A Critique of Balibar. 4. Europe’s Cosmopolitan Borders. 5. ‘Spaces of Wonder’: The Global Politics of Strangeness. 6. Empire and the Hubris of the ‘High-point’. 7. Postwesternization. 8. The World is not enough: Globalization Reconsidered. 9. Concluding Thoughts: The Spaces of Critical Cosmopolitanism. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Author Bio

Chris Rumford is Senior Lecturer in Political Sociology at Royal Holloway, University of London where he is co-director of the Centre for Global and Transnational Politics. He is the author of The European Union: A Political Sociology (Blackwell, 2002), co-author (with Gerard Delanty) of Rethinking Europe: Social Theory and the Implicatiuropeanization (Routledge, 2005), and editor of Cosmopolitanism and Europe (Liverpool University Press, 2007) and Handbook of European Studies (Sage, forthcoming 2008).