Authors:
- Explores the origin story of the European Union through a history of the pan-European idea in the first three decades of the twentieth century
- Challenges the hold of nationalism on Central Europe before WWII and demonstrates the surprisingly limited reach of radical nationalists
- Reconstructs the intellectual and social context of several influential thinkers of European unity before and after the First World War
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Table of contents (7 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
About this book
This book reconstructs the intellectual and social context of several influential proponents of European unity before and after the First World War. Through the lives and works of the well-known promoter of Pan-Europe, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, and his less well-known predecessor, Alfred Hermann Fried, the book illuminates how transnational peace projects emerged from individuals who found themselves alienated from an increasingly nationalizing political climate within the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the new nation states of the interwar period. The book’s most important intervention concerns the Jewish origins of crucial plans for European unity. It reveals that some of the most influential ideas on European culture and on the peaceful reorganization of an interconnected Europe emerged from Jewish milieus and as a result of Jewish predicaments.
Reviews
“Sorrels demonstrates the abiding legacy of Austria-Hungary for Europe. She explores the affinities between the Jewish pacifist, Alfred Fried, and the aristocratic founder of interwar Paneuropa, Coudenhove-Kalergi, and reveals their cosmopolitanism as grounded in their marginality: Jews and aristocrats alike found a rapidly racializing nationalism and the interwar nationalizing state inhospitable. Affirming marginality, empire, and internationalism against racial hegemony, nationalizing state and ethnonationalism, Sorrels shows Jewish internationalism as pivotal to visions of European unity.” (Malachi Hacohen, Duke University)
“This book offers a fresh, new perspective on the origins of ideas on European unification. It shows how Jewish predicaments and perspectives gave rise to some of the most important ideas for achieving European peace through integration. This makes it a timely intervention into current debates on the Christian character of Europe and an important contribution to Jewish and intellectual history.” (Ari Joskowicz, Vanderbilt University)
Authors and Affiliations
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Cincinnati, USA
Katherine Sorrels
About the author
Katherine Sorrels is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati, USA. Much of her work relates to the question of how political ideologies and scientific theories have been used to draw boundaries of exclusion and how marginalized thinkers and activists have reinterpreted those ideologies and theories to argue for a more inclusive form of international life.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Cosmopolitan Outsiders
Book Subtitle: Imperial Inclusion, National Exclusion, and the Pan-European Idea, 1900-1930
Authors: Katherine Sorrels
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-72062-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: History, History (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-57819-8Published: 15 September 2016
eBook ISBN: 978-1-349-72062-0Published: 13 October 2016
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 258
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: History of Modern Europe, Cultural History, Political History