Cosmopolitanism—the view that all human beings, independent of their national affiliations, are of equal concern and, thus, that justice applies to the cosmos—may seem a radical theoretical and political project, especially in our current times characterized by the worldwide upsurge of nationalistic and antiglobal feelings. In her incredibly powerful and ingenious work, Inés Valdez shows that, to unleash the emancipatory potential of cosmopolitanism, we need to move beyond existing and influential neo-Kantian understandings of cosmopolitan justice. Valdez masterfully demonstrates that such accounts are ultimately ill equipped to (1) theorize the transnational nature of injustice (i.e., the intrinsically intertwined oppression of marginalized subjects within and outside the “West”); (2) recognize the necessity of political spaces that not only “exceed the domestic and international spheres” (p. 7) but also unravel and denounce their racialized and imperial foundations; and (3) center the cosmopolitan project not on “the charitable Westerner” but on “subaltern colonized and neocolonized subjects” and their political struggles (pp. 7–8). In so doing, Valdez’s book is a major contribution to international political theory, the history of international political thought, critical race theory, and international relations.

Valdez advances an account of “transnational cosmopolitanism” that is normatively compelling and original, as well as methodologically creative. Normatively, it overcomes the weakness of neo-Kantian cosmopolitan proposals and offers an invaluable framework to theorize and assess our postcolonial cosmos marked by “unequal sovereignty, racialized labor exploitation, and neoliberal capitalism” (p. 14). Methodologically, her account is developed by innovatively juxtaposing a “disloyal” reading of Kant’s (and neo-Kantian) principles of “complementarity” between different realms of politics and of “hospitality” with W. E. B. Du Bois’s post–World War I writings on the global “color line” and his political activism.

After starting with a brand-new contextual interpretation of Kant’s Toward Perpetual Peace, which questions the usefulness of his critique of colonialism to an emancipatory cosmopolitanism (chapter 1), Valdez scrutinizes whether the “hierarchical strands of [the Kantian] framework may resurface in [those contemporary] approaches indebted to it” (p. 56) by insightfully engaging with neo-Kantian cosmopolitans (chapter 2). Valdez argues that, despite their well-meaning intentions, neo-Kantian cosmopolitans fail to grapple with transnationalism and are still affected by Eurocentrism in that they (1) take the European federal institutional project as the model to be expanded to the whole world, (2) overlook “anti-colonialism as a political practice and intellectual tradition” (p. 57), or (3) neglect the imperial origins of international projects like the League of Nations and the European Union. For Valdez, transnationalism can be fully theorized only when Kant’s principles of “complementarity” and “hospitality” are transfigured through looking at the intellectual and political work of marginalized subjects who mobilized against the transnational nature of racial domination and crafted “transnational alliances to contest … exclusion built around racial lines” (p. 86) in domestic politics and internationally. Chapters 3–5 develop a transnational cosmopolitanism by building on Du Bois’s thought and political mobilization as a cofounder and representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as editor and writer of its magazine The Crisis, and as a crucial voice in the pan-African movement.

The notion of “transnational cosmopolitanism” is distinctive in many respects. First, it reconceives justice and oppression as intrinsically transnational by identifying “the common threads of injustice behind slavery, colonialism, and neocolonialism” (p. 89) and “the shared experience of injustice” (p. 149) tying together racialized subjects across the world. Second and importantly, unlike other cosmopolitan projects that either reject the normative potential of identity or narrowly and problematically focus on national identity as a source of cosmopolitan commitments, transnational cosmopolitanism is nourished by specific and transformative identity-based forms of solidarity. Such identity-based forms of solidarity are centered on “the experience of racialization that differently affected Africans, African diasporas, Asians, and other dark peoples subject to colonial and neo-colonial power” and require “the [political] transformation of black consciousness toward the transnational” (p. 119). Third, transnational cosmopolitanism creates disruptions in those domestic and international “sanctioned existing spaces of politics” (p. 88) by challenging their exclusionary and dominating character. Simultaneously, it inaugurates alternative and new political spaces in which racially marginalized voices can unite to overcome such political realms and pursue justice. Valdez shows how this new political transnational subject formation is enabled by “a transnational counter-public” that challenges imperial hegemony and “address[es] different loci of authority on behalf of [the] causes” (p. 167) of racialized subjects.

Valdez’s book is an extraordinary achievement, one that profoundly reshapes cosmopolitanism, makes it a fully emancipatory project, and thus commands a wider readership. However, I have some questions about what Valdez’s transnational cosmopolitanism would entail for contemporary global challenges.

First, I wonder about the generalizability of this approach to different types of transnational injustice and particularly to those caused by “neoliberal globalism.” Although I fully agree with Valdez about the transnational nature of neoliberal injustice and about the need for the Left not to subscribe to the narrative framed around the alleged uniqueness of the marginalization of the white working class (p. 183), I am more skeptical about the prospects of “class consciousness” being created through political craft and transnational intellectual and political work. This is not simply because subjects affected by neoliberal capitalism are differently positioned and have multiple identities but also because some of their crucial identities (i.e., their racial identities) and interests have been historically constructed in opposition to one another. Although, as Valdez shows, the new black consciousness envisioned by Du Bois and the ties of transnational solidarity among subjects sharing an experience of racialization were not “natural” but rather were the product of political work, their creation also did not entail eradicating existing identities. The case of neoliberal globalism is not just harder but also substantively different and thus posits specific challenges. Subjects who have enjoyed (at least some) material and status privileges by being racialized as “white” would have to completely reconceive their political, social, and economic interests and embark on a process of deconstructing an important and politically salient identity and of eroding problematic identity ties. Obviously, both Du Bois and Valdez are fully aware of the role played by racial resentment in politics historically, and Valdez is well aware of its contemporary role (p. 183). However, the implications that this has for transnational cosmopolitanism are far-reaching, and whether Valdez’s framework can be applied to the injustice of neoliberal globalism is not so straightforward, precisely because of the structural role that race plays in shaping interests and solidarities in politics that she has so powerfully reconstructed.

Second, although I share Valdez’s idea that the agency of (neo-)colonial subjects should take center stage within the literature on cosmopolitanism, rather than frame cosmopolitan justice as what the charitable “West” should do, I wonder what (if anything) transnational cosmopolitanism has to say about the responsibilities of privileged domestic and international actors, including privileged “Western” citizens. Understandably, Valdez aims to reconstruct the neglected voices and actions of subaltern colonized and neocolonized subjects; however, I also suspect that she does not want to suggest that, say, Western citizens racialized as white should do nothing against transnational racialized injustices. Therefore, more generally, should (transnational) cosmopolitanism also be about building solidarity among subjects who do not necessarily share any particular experience and identity apart from humanity? And, more specifically, does transnational cosmopolitanism lead to a reconceptualization of the responsibilities of those privileged citizens who do not share an experience of racialized or economic injustice, which is different from, say, the account given by neo-Kantian cosmopolitans?

Third, I wonder what Valdez’s transnational cosmopolitanism implies for the EU project at a time when such a project is under attack on multiple fronts, including from the populist radical right. On the one hand, Valdez seems to be open to the idea that European identity should be radically reformulated to confront and address “the notions of racial and civilizational superiority and empire, which grounded its origins” (p. 148). On the other hand, she repeatedly suggests that those counter-publics inaugurated by transnational solidarity should not only try to “reform sanctioned realms of politics, but instead overcome them, given their role in sustaining domination” (p. 19). I have found this ambiguity troubling because of its possible implications. It seems to me that, although the European project clearly must be transformed and decolonized, any attempt to overcome it, especially at our present juncture, would backfire on the very transnational cosmopolitan project advocated by Valdez, and it is not clear that it would open the way for the emancipation of racialized subjects domestically, globally, and transnationally. Would Valdez’s transnational cosmopolitanism be compatible with or even require the idea that, although Europe should not be conceived of as the only cosmopolitan agent, a decolonized and truly renovated Europe should still play an important role in promoting cosmopolitan values?

By posing these questions and concerns, I do not intend to challenge the core ideas advanced by Transnational Cosmopolitanism but rather to invite further discussion on how the arguments advanced by this splendid book could inform our deeply troubling present—a present that is very much in need of the type of political craft exemplified by Du Bois’s intellectual and activist work.