Arts & International Affairs: Vol. 4, No. 2, Autumn 2019 | Page 9

ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
The flows of technologies and peoples, and the thrusts of passion, tradition, reason, beliefs
and values collectively shape the cultural histories of cosmopolitanism and its borders.
Through the cultural spaces of cities and borders, the authors in this issue explore
the potential of cosmopolitanism but not without attending to its limitations both internally
and externally. Sarajevo has just re-emerged from recent ravages and destruction.
Wroclaw is a beacon of cosmopolitanism in an alarmingly reactionary Poland and the
populism of our times. In their magisterial history of a Wroclaw through a thousand
years, Norman Davies and Roger Moorhouse (2003) see it as a Microcosm of a central
European city with its “migrants and settlers” and one where “national states were inevitably
small and weak, while dynastic empires were large and strong” (ibid.:9). In the
twentieth century, Wroclaw experienced fascist and communist totalitarianism. However,
its history includes its salience as a seat of learning in Central Europe and now its
position as a culturally prosperous business hub. Wroclaw is once again “the flower of
Europe” as it’s been known through history. Similar celebrations and tensions inform
the work of all authors in this volume. They all speak to cultural networks that are wide
and inclusive, but in a world that can also be reactionary and exclusive. They continue
the ponderings and critiques of a cosmopolitanism that emerged with the railways of
nineteenth-century Europe.
References
Barber, Benjamin R. (2013) If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Barzun, Jacques. (2000) From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life�
1500 to the Present. New York: Harper Collins
Davies, Norman, and Roger Moorhouse. (2003) Microcosm: A Portrait of a Central European
City. London: Pimlico/Random House.
Figes, Rolando. (2019) The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture.
New York: Metropolitan Books
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