Visions of World Community

“This imaginative and erudite analysis of changing relationships between society, humanity and the cosmos provides fresh insights into the tensions between universalistic and particularistic visions of community - and a distinctive angle on how they might yet be resolved.”
Andrew Linklater, Woodrow Wilson Professor of International Politics, Aberystwyth University

“This remarkable book aims to change the way we think about the world by changing the way we remember our history of thinking about the world…. Visions of World Community is a brilliant book.”
Ayse Zarakol, Washington & Lee University, Journal of Politics

“Bartelson’s Visions of World Community points the way to a kind of communal pluralism, rather than to a form of moral cosmopolitanism. For some that may severely diminish its value. But for me it is one of the book’s greatest strengths, since it shows that our sense of attachment to a broader human community need not rest on controversial claims about the moral priority of cosmopolitan loyalties and obligations.”
Bernard Yack, Brandeis University, Political Theory

“Bartelson’s call to envision world community resonates and leads in promising new directions. Visions of World Community not only engages canonical texts but is well versed in the interpretive controversies that have developed around them. Not many writers have such a mastery of both the fields of political theory and IR theory. The work is courageous and often quite fresh and inspiring; it will challenge you to fundamentally reconsider issues you thought settled, and that to my mind is a sign of a good book.”
Mlada Bukovansky, Smith College, International Studies Review