Cosmopolitan Elites and the Making of Globality - (Histories of Internationalism) by Leonie Wolters (Hardcover)

About the Book

This book shows how the 20th century world was shaped by a group of cosmopolitan elites from Asia who embraced internationalism and circulated ideologies throughout their global networks.

Book Synopsis

As ideologies such as communism, fascism and various nationalisms vied for global domination during the first half of the 20th century, this book shows how a specific group of individuals - a cosmopolitan elite - became representatives of those ideologies the world over.

Centering on the Indian intellectual M.N Roy, Cosmopolitan Elites and the Making of Globality situates his life within various social circles that covered several ideological realms and continents. An example of an individual who represented ideologies such as anticolonial nationalism, communism and humanism, Roy is identified as unusual but by no means singular in this capacity, and shows how other elites were similarly able to represent ideologies that sought to make the world anew.

This book explores how Roy and his peers and competitors became a political elite as they cultivated a cosmopolitan reputation that meant they were taken seriously even when speaking of regions outside of their own. By considering the social and performative practices that turned them into credible, global, cosmopolitans, Wolters uncovers the exclusive basis on which the universal claims of world-changing ideologies were made.

Review Quotes

This global history of M.N. Roy and many of his allies (as well as critics) offers an exciting angle into the internationalism of Indian anti-colonial revolutionaries by offering an analysis of "smooth, distinguished cosmopolitanism," exemplified by culinary and sartorial choices, clandestine spaces, and sensual pleasures of exiles and itinerants.
Neilesh Bose, Associate Professor of History and Canada Research Chair, University of Victoria, Canada

This is a thoroughly fascinating book. It challenges fundamental assumptions of what makes a cosmopolitan person while being a new model of intellectual history. By looking at M. N. Roy's border crossing, global thinking, and subversive practices, Leonie Wolters offers original insights into intellectual globalization - and how one individual served an ideology that claimed universal meaning.
Jeremy Adelman, Director Global History Lab, University of Cambridge, UK

About the Author

Leonie Wolters is a postdoc researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam, Germany. Having studied in Utrecht, Edinburgh and Dar es Salaam she has also worked in journalism and created several documentaries for Dutch radio.