Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Issues of Our Time) (Paperback)
“A brilliant and humane philosophy for our confused age.”—Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell
Drawing on a broad range of disciplines, including history, literature, and philosophy—as well as the author's own experience of life on three continents—Cosmopolitanism is a moral manifesto for a planet we share with more than six billion strangers.
Kwame Anthony Appiah pens the Ethicist column for the New York Times, and is the author of the prize-winning Cosmopolitanism, among many other works. A professor of philosophy and law at New York University, Appiah lives in New York.
A welcome attempt to resurrect an older tradition of moral and political reflection and to show its relevance to our current condition.
— John Gray - The Nation
Cosmopolitanism is... of wide interest—invitingly written and enlivened by personal history.... Appiah is wonderfully perceptive and levelheaded about this tangle of issues.
— Thomas Nagel - The New Republic
Elegantly provocative.
— Edward Rothstein - New York Times
[Appiah's] belief in having conversations across boundaries, and in recognizing our obligations to other human beings, offers a welcome prescription for a world still plagued by fanaticism and intolerance.
— Kofi A. Annan, former United Nations secretary-general
[Appiah's] exhilarating exposition of his philosophy knocks one right off complacent balance.... All is conveyed with flashes of iconoclastic humor.
— Nadine Gordimer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature
An attempt to redefine our moral obligations to others based on a very humane and realistic outlook and love of art.... I felt like a better person after I read it, and I recommend the same experience to others.
— Orham Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature
— John Gray - The Nation
Cosmopolitanism is... of wide interest—invitingly written and enlivened by personal history.... Appiah is wonderfully perceptive and levelheaded about this tangle of issues.
— Thomas Nagel - The New Republic
Elegantly provocative.
— Edward Rothstein - New York Times
[Appiah's] belief in having conversations across boundaries, and in recognizing our obligations to other human beings, offers a welcome prescription for a world still plagued by fanaticism and intolerance.
— Kofi A. Annan, former United Nations secretary-general
[Appiah's] exhilarating exposition of his philosophy knocks one right off complacent balance.... All is conveyed with flashes of iconoclastic humor.
— Nadine Gordimer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature
An attempt to redefine our moral obligations to others based on a very humane and realistic outlook and love of art.... I felt like a better person after I read it, and I recommend the same experience to others.
— Orham Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature