Perpetual War

In Perpetual War, the distinguished cultural theorist Bruce Robbins turns his attention to cosmopolitanism, arguing that the moral import of the concept must be restored. Where it once stood for a loyalty that transcended the nation and encompassed humanity as a whole, cosmopolitanism has come to indicate the movement of peoples and cultures and the creative mixtures that emerge as they interact. Perpetual War is an impassioned call for American intellectuals to reconfigure cosmopolitanism for our time, partly by recovering its humanist ethics.Robbins develops his entreaty through a series of essays. In each one, he engages with the thought of a notable intellectual, from Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and Anthony Appiah to Immanuel Wallerstein, Louis Menand, W. G. Sebald, and Slavoj Zizek. The goal of the antinationalist cosmopolitanism that Robbins advocates is not “respect for the other” but resistance to military aggression. Given the death and destruction that the United States has wrought during the past decade, the critique of American nationalism is the urgent task of American intellectuals in the present moment.