Cosmopolitan Nationalism in Ghana

Founding Fathers, Nation-Building, and Transnational Thinkers

Mary A. Seiwaa Owusu

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2024
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009524681
• Subtopic: African History
• Index: History

Nineteenth and twentieth-century West African writer-intellectuals harnessed their Atlantic networks to explore ideas of race, regeneration, and nation-building. Yet, the ultimately cosmopolitan nature of these political and intellectual pursuits has been overlooked by dominant narratives of anti-colonial history. In contrast, Cosmopolitan Nationalism in Ghana uses cosmopolitanism as a primary theoretical tool, interrogating the anti-colonial writings that prop up Ghana's nationalist history under a new light. Mary A. Seiwaa Owusu highlights the limitations of accepted labels of nationalist scholarship and confirms that these writer-intellectuals instead engaged with ideas around the globe. This study offers a more complex account of the nation-building project, arguing for the pivotal role of other groups and factors in addition to Kwame Nkrumah's leadership. In turn, it proposes a historical account which assumes a cosmopolitan setting, highlights the centrality of debate, and opens a vista for richer understandings of Ghanaians' longstanding questions about thriving in the world.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title page
• Imprints page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Ghana’s Grand Narrative
• 2 Rethinking Proto-Nationalism: Blyden and Horton (1863–1912)
• 3 Rethinking Cultural Nationalism as Debates on Synthesis (1887–1920)
• 4 Misreading Conservative Nationalism (1920–1945)
• 5 Rethinking the Monopoly of Radical Nationalism (1946–1958)
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index