A gentle, conversational, sharp piece of advocacy for dialoguing with each other across cultures. Eirenic and perhaps somewhat naïve; but hopeful. ( )

For as long as humanity has created different cultures, there has also been clashes between them. One would think that we'd be better at getting along by now. The author has written an engaging contemporary essay that is part philosophy and part situated reminiscence on the ancient concept of the "polites of the cosmos", or citizen of the world. ( )

The most frustrating thing about this book is that Prof. Appiah doesn't really seem to advocating what I would consider true Cosmopolitanism. He supports nation-states, individuals acting in preference to their local concerns over those at a distance, and even a form of I guess what you'd call enlightened self-interest. What's "Cosmopolitan" about any of this? Since the "neo-" prefix gets appended onto just about everything these days, I guess we could call what he's advocating "Neocosmopolitanism"? To coin a, uh, neologism. In any event, one thought I had reading the book is that he's filling a can with Sprite and calling it Coca-Cola.

But I happen to like Sprite in preference to Coca-Cola, and I also happen to think his modifications to the over the top ideas of true Cosmopolitanism rein in some of the goofier extremes he cites, and that render the philosophy unlivable by humans. And that's the case even if these extremes follow logically from the premises of the philosophy, though he seems unwilling to concede this point.

His outlook on the world also candidly struck me as rather naïve, or at least tilting towards an unfortunate political correctness. As in, for a gay man, he certainly seemed reluctant to criticize Islam, though he mentioned attitudes toward gay marriage in the West. Well, if homosexuals can't get married in the West at least they're not at risk of being stoned to death.

An interesting work, but I would submit not a complete one. ( )

Ethics for a multicultural world; we can live together, even if we disagree.