John Brewer – ‘Patriotic Cosmopolitanism; Cosmopolitan Patriotism’ Local loyalties and universal rights since the French revolution

– Keynote lecture HLCS Conference ‘Europe Contested’ – 

There is a long history of tensions between on the one hand particular affiliations to nation, religious faith, locale, landscape, people and race, which are often seen as emotional and affective, and on the other larger aims and values (often transnational as in the European case, sometimes universal) that are not necessarily tied to place and which are seen as abstract and cerebral. These are issues that have vexed contemporary political theorists and philosophers, but which have been salient since the French revolution.  This talk takes two historical cases, the one British, the other Italian, to explore the debate about these tensions, and to suggest directions in which the modern debate might develop.

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