This volume offers critical, historical and theoretical perspectives on cosmopolitanism, paying attention to its implications and manifestations both within and outside Europe. It also explores the links between cosmopolitanism and teleological understandings of Europe: there is an idea of «progress» not far below the surface of the concept, but what does it mean and what is its ultimate aim? Through this analysis, the authors uncover several cosmopolitanisms originating and playing out in different periods of European history, most notably during Antiquity and during the European Enlightenment. The book shows that some of the languages of cosmopolitanism did not originate in or locate themselves exclusively in Europe, but that they nonetheless spread through connections with that continent, most commonly through the colonial encounter. The study contains valuable historical analyses of cosmopolitanism in context, in Europe, Russia, the Ottoman Empire and Africa. The book is based on papers presented at the conference «Revisiting the Imaginations of Europe and the World: Coming to Terms with Teleologies and Assessing Cosmopolitanism», held at the University of Helsinki in 2010.

Mónica García-Salmones (Dr. Juris from the University of Helsinki, 2012) is Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki, within the Academy of Finland project «Intellectual History of International Law: Empire and Religion». Her research interests include international legal theories, positivism, economic positivism and legal philosophy. She addresses these in her forthcoming book The Project of Positivism in International Law (2013). Pamela Slotte (Dr. Theol. from Åbo Akademi University, 2005) is Academy of Finland Research Fellow, Senior Research Fellow at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki, and Adjunct Professor of Theological Ethics with Philosophy of Religion at Åbo Akademi University. Her current research focuses on the concept of religious freedom and the management of the sacred in international human rights law.