Cosmopolitan Spaces Europe, Globalization, Theory Routledge Advances in Sociology Series

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?.

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.

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 Implications of Europeanization (Routledge, 2005), and editor of Cosmopolitanism and Europe (Liverpool University Press, 2007) and Handbook of European Studies (Sage, forthcoming 2008).