Author(s): Kwame Anthony Appiah

Culture & Ideas

Kwame Anthony Appiah s landmark new work, featured on the cover of the "New York Times Magazine," challenges the separatist doctrines espoused in books like Samuel Huntington s "The Clash of Civilizations." Reviving the ancient philosophy of cosmopolitanism, a school of thought that dates to the Cynics of the fourth century BC, Appiah traces its influence on the ethical legacies of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the UN s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Raised in Ghana, educated in England, and now a distinguished professor in the United States, Appiah promises to create a new era in which warring factions will finally put aside their supposed ideological differences and will recognize that the fundamental values held by all human beings will usher in a new era of global understanding.