In an analysis based in a sophisticated use of critical theory, Fojas (Latin American and Latino studies, DePaul U., Chicago) engages a selection of modernist Latin American writers of the early 20th century as examples of cosmopolitanism, a notion here interpreted as a worldly modernity. The writings of Enrique Gomez Carrillo, Aurelia Castillo de Gonzalez (who wrote about the Chicago World's Fair), Jose Enrique Rodo, and the Venezuelan journal Cosmopolis are discussed in the context of other writers in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, and in terms of their expression of determinedly non-mainstream values, lifestyles, and ideas. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

This book examines Latin America's history of engagement with cosmopolitanisms as a manner of asserting a genealogy that links cultural critique in Latin America and the United States. Cosmopolitanism is crucial to any discussion of Latin America, and Latin Americanism as a discipline. Reinaldo Arenas and Diamela Eltit become nodal points to discuss a wide range of issues that include the pedagogical dimensions of the DVD commentary track, the challenges of the Internet to canonization, and links between ethical practices of Benetton and the U.S. academy. These authors, whose rejection of the comfort of regimented constituencies results in their writing being perceived as raw, vindictive, and even alienating, are ripe for critique. What they say about their relation to place with regard to their products' national and international viability is central. The book performs what it theorizes. It travels between methodologies, hence bridging the divide between cosmopolitanism and that alleged common space of Latin American identity as per the colonial experience, illustrating cosmopolitanism as a mediating operation that is crucial to any discussion of Latin America, and of Latin Americanism as a discipline.

In an analysis based in a sophisticated use of critical theory, Fojas (Latin American and Latino studies, DePaul U., Chicago) engages a selection of modernist Latin American writers of the early 20th century as examples of cosmopolitanism, a notion here interpreted as a worldly modernity. The writings of Enrique Gomez Carrillo, Aurelia Castillo de Gonzalez (who wrote about the Chicago World's Fair), Jose Enrique Rodo, and the Venezuelan journal Cosmopolis are discussed in the context of other writers in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, and in terms of their expression of determinedly non-mainstream values, lifestyles, and ideas. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

This book argues that cosmopolitanism was a feature of early American discourses of nation formation and eighteenth-century colonialism. With the analysis of writings by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, Philip Mazzei, and Olaudah Equiano, the book reassesses the terms in which we understand cosmopolitanism, its relationship with local and transatlantic environments, and the way these representative writers from different segments of colonial society identified themselves and America within the transatlantic context. The book shows that the transnational and universalist appeal of the cosmopolitan not only accompanies empire building and defines a narrative that aligns the cosmopolitan perspective of global understanding and cooperation with western political ideology. The language of the cosmopolitan also forms the basis of a rhetoric that resists imperial expansion and allows writers in a variety of cultural, social, and political margins to find a voice to identify themselves, America, and the transatlantic world they imagine.

'Cosmopolitanism and Nationhood in the Age of Jefferson' explores the origins of modern conceptions of world citizenship and the nation in Jeffersonian America. In today's discussions of a transnational world, cosmopolitanism tends to be understood as a potential antidote to problematic aspects of nationhood - indeed, cosmopolitanism is often treated as a direct antonym of nationalism. From the perspective of the eighteenth century, however, such an understanding would hardly be self-evident: for Thomas Jefferson and many of his peers in the late Enlightenment, it was possible to conceive of themselves as broad-minded cosmopolitans and as ardent advocates of national interests, without having to emphasize a potential of conflict. Jeffersonian cosmopolitanism, as analyzed in the essays of this volume, could thus become a powerful secular source of nineteenth- and twentieth-century American exceptionalism. 'Cosmopolitanism and Nationhood in the Age of Jefferson' takes an interdisciplinary approach to the controversial topic of the cosmopolitan roots of modern nationhood, examining it in its historical, political, cultural, literary, and philosophical dimensions.

"This truly transnational history reveals the important role of Americans abroad in the Age of Revolution, as well as providing an early example of the limits of American influence on other nations. From the beginning of the French Revolution to its end at the hands of Napoleon, American cosmopolitans like Thomas Jefferson, Gouverneur Morris, Thomas Paine, Joel Barlow, and James Monroe drafted constitutions, argued over violent means and noble ends, confronted sudden regime changes, and negotiated diplomatic crises such as the XYZ Affair and the Louisiana Purchase." "Eager to report on what they regarded as universal political ideals and practices, Americans again and again confronted the particular circumstances of a foreign nation in turmoil. In turn, what they witnessed in Paris caused these prominent Americans to reflect on the condition and prospects of their own republic. Thus, their individual stories highlight overlooked parallels between the nation-building process in both France and America, and the two countries' common struggle to reconcile the rights of man with their own national identity." --Book Jacket.

Through readings of slave narratives, fiction, poetry, nonfiction, newspaper editorials, and government documents including texts by Frederick Douglass and freed West Indian slave Mary Prince, Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo explicates the growing interrelatedness of people of African descent through the Americas in the nineteenth century.