Conclusion: The World Within?

Abstract

In this chapter, the theoretical innovations that underpin the study are restated. Subsequently, a set of themes and ideas that flow through the chapters are made explicit: the extent to which Germany still exists as a nation rather than simply a “transnational space” across which diverse people move, transnationalism as neoliberalism versus transnationalism as potential cosmopolitanism, and the nation as the grounding for a new, more genuine “worldliness.” The salience of these themes for our understanding of contemporary Germany is explored in greater detail—but also their salience for today’s global debates on “nation” and “world” too. The book concludes by suggesting that it may be unrealistic to hope that German-language authors should be able to “think beyond the nation,” given the geopolitical and economic challenges of the global present. Instead, it might be more fruitful to concentrate on the ways they engage creatively and productively with the “world within.”

Germany is something of a test case for a cosmopolitan nationalism. ¹ Ulrich Beck, 2012.