Cosmopolitan Spaces ― Europe, Globalization, Theory

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’.

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).