How should a world becoming more integrated, more common, albeit more pluralized, be studied? This question/hypothesis lies at the centre of Pluriel et commun. Sociologie d’un monde cosmopolite. According to Vincenzo Cicchelli, lecturer at Paris-Descartes University, globalization leads as much to stronger cultural and economic ties, to the sharing of diverse cultural products as to the many rejections of global homogenization. The sociological challenge would be to understand these simultaneous movements of unification and pluralisation, while the normative challenge would be to develop a global community “recognizing” its intrinsic plurality. Researcher at the Groupe d’Étude des Méthodes de l’Analyse Sociologie de la Sorbonne (gemass) and coordinator of the Sociétés plurielles (Plural Societies) interdisciplinary program at Sorbonne Paris-Cité University, Cicchelli proposes a theoretical and empirical research program at the service of an ambitious “sociology of cosmopolitanism” or “cosmopolitan sociology,” to better understand non-linear cosmopolitanization of contemporary individuals.

This book can be read as an introduction to the theories and debates of the sociology of globalization––as an exploration of more sociological and empirical avenues in order to better study them. Specialists will appreciate its inquisitive breadth and the public will be instructed by a rich introduction. This last is confirmed in abundant references and citations, and summaries of debates central to global studies; this can, however, occasionally give the impression of a broad review of literature where the book’s originality is not entirely discernable. Its novelty is made evident in arguments in favour of a (revived) sociology of cosmopolitanism, especially in indicative calls for more empirical works, and a fresh heuristic typology. In the end, the reader might nonetheless be unsure that this sociology does (or will) grasp an elusive world “global society,” an impression accentuated by the book’s numerous and largely unarticulated classifications. This introductive and explorative trait seems confirmed by recurring superlative expressions, which invoke rather than summon the thesis of a cosmopolitan “new world”—a “world” the author anticipates with undisguised enthusiasm. This does nothing to diminish the book’s heuristic richness, which might paradoxically be explained by its great ambition, as well as its care for nuance, as he presents two concurrent theses—one “strong” or original, the other “moderate” or classical.

The “moderate” thesis successfully reiterates the many spaces and venues of encounter between individuals, societies and cultures that make up the globalized world: from the global market to tourism, from mass media to cultural goods and global immigration, moments of world cultural interaction have accumulated. They are reinforced by the feeling of living on a shared planet, caused by the multiple transnational interplays relayed by the news media, such as global economic and environmental crises. These new realities, like all social phenomena, deserve study. The “strong” thesis proposes that such study requires a renewed sociology. First, the author finds it counterproductive to break with classical sociology’s writers and categories of analysis. Unlike many global studies, he seeks to actualize rather than upend classical sociology in favour of a new “cosmopolitan sociology.” Such ambition increases the difficulty of his undertaking, constraining him to avoid sociological Newspeak while providing the reader with the necessary established concepts to appreciate his analysis. Hence, second, he revisits certain key sociological concepts, such as “global society” and “socialization.” He considers that a (new) global society, properly global rather than national, would progressively socialize individuals to its symbolic universe. Third, he furthermore seeks to apply his conceptual tools to empirical reality by measuring––using ideal-types and indicators––the development (or decline) of a “cosmopolitan mentality.” Inasmuch, he makes a convincing and much needed plea for empirical research and conceptual rigour from a cosmopolitan intellectual tradition often used to theoretical “innovations” and normative teleology.

If the “moderate” thesis convinces one of globalization’s novelties, the “strong” thesis is at pains to locate such a deep and structuring world “global society” “socializing” individuals to its “cosmopolitan mentality.” In contrast, the “global society” of classical sociology—for example, that of Georges Gurvitch, Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss or Talcott Parsons—was concretely articulated in the institutional and symbolic framework of the nation-state, such as schools, literature and the press. It is far from certain that they have been replaced, even in their renewed form.

The book is divided into six chapters, with two large sections touching on these two theses.

The first section is tasked with describing “the distinctive characteristics of the cosmopolitan world.” The author finds the “ladders and interdependencies” (chapter 1) of the cosmopolitan world, notably the creation of transnational spaces and temporalities such as the megalopolises, where the flux of connections and exchanges weaken the power of the modern nation-state, hence troubling classical sociology’s methodological nationalism while pleading in favour of its actualization. A “methodological cosmopolitanism” would thus be in play, whose “matrices of singularity” (chapter 2)—that is the framework of symbolic integration on a planetary scale—would be made visible by the growing feeling of shared global “risks,” especially environmental ones, and by global artistic productions, from Hollywood to Bollywood, which would favour a united cultural universe. In so, the “place of plurality” (chapter 3) would not be dissolved within world “global society,” but rather accentuated and transformed: since folkloric goods, such as touristic and culinary fare, obtain an added commercial value, and cultural particularisms (re)take vigour in the face of diasporic immigration and the weakening of the nation-state.

Building on these observations, the second section tasks itself with revisiting classical sociology in order to strengthen “cosmopolitan sociology” with the concept of a world “global society,” understood as a vector for a “cosmopolitan socialization” whose “elementary forms” the author attempts to define and measure. He sets himself the task of “think[ing] on cosmopolitan socialization” (chapter 4) by employing the categories of “otherness” and “humanity.” He finds that growing otherness at the heart of societies, as well as individuals’ multiple identities, change the socializing face of “significant others,” displacing the classical figures of parenthood, friendship and professional models towards figures of cultural and religious difference, such as immigrants. In fact, socializing imaginaries would no longer be only those of locality and nationality, but those of humanity as a whole, which would become “the ultimate horizon of socialization.” Such “cosmopolitan socialization” would produce a particular “cosmopolitan” individual (chapter 5), which would be, in ideal-type terms, rarely achieved in any single person; but rather found in one shade or another in all members of the world “global society.” This “cosmopolitan” would be primarily recognized by their identification to the world as a whole rather than to a locality or nationality, as well as their favouring of otherness, that is to say a “sense of hospitality towards the cultural differences of others,” “faith placed in institutions with a supranational or even universal mission,” as well as “concern for the other” [188]. In a particularly interesting and original last chapter, the author offers a typology of “the elementary forms of the cosmopolitan spirit” (chapter 6), defined by ideal-type “cosmo-esthetic,” “cosmo-culturalist,” “cosmo-ethic,” and “cosmo-political” figures. Each of these possible (and potentially compounding) facets of the cosmopolitan individual is defined by varying indicators—the “goal,” the “operational mode,” the “principal virtue,” “emotions,” and “learning”—to which certain attributes correspond. For example, the most widely-spread “cosmo-ethic” would be expressed by the goal of the “tastes of others,” the operational mode of “consumption,” the principal virtue of “openness,” the emotion of “pleasure” and “entertainment,” and “aesthetic” learning. Such typology promises interesting empirical research, which would better distinguish between different brands of global sensibilities and their varied and diffuse (non-deterministic) manifestations: there is indeed a world of (non-linear) differences between the “cosmo-esthetic” and the “cosmo-political” types.

The author concludes by calling upon “cosmopolitan sociology” to make “a greater effort […] in the empirical research to come […] We do not have enough distance. Our knowns are too numerous, dispersed, extended. Above all, we have renounced the very idea of being able to integrate them into a whole” [254]. We would suggest that in the empirical and synthetic work to come, a hypothetical “cosmopolitan sociology” would benefit from better defining the contours and concrete locations of this world “global society” to which individuals would in future be socialized. After all, this world “global society” seems to have much to do with the structures and imagination of American global society (Hollywood to McDonald’s, capitalism to multiculturalism) and thus much to do with the (neo)liberal ideology disseminated by a number of classical occidental institutions, such as schools, universities, the media, business and the law. In other words, is the “cosmopolitan mentality” not found in the very primarily occidental national (global) societies, which socialize more and more according to a particular liberal or post-modern—integrated, individualistic and diverse—idea of humanity? Do we not thus better understand, according to the empirical studies put forward by the author, that the cosmopolitan individual is rather rare, and is most frequently a young urban occidental man, educated and at ease [182-186]—and thus rather weak the “socializing force of the cosmopolitan world” [175]? Thanks to its sociological ambition and to its search for nuance and empirical indicators, pointing out the contemporary sociological complexities and limits of cosmopolitan ideals would be one of this book’s merits.