Cosmopolitan Nationalism in Ghana: Founding Fathers, Nation-Building, and Transnational Thinkers

By: Mary A. Owusu

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Synopsis: 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.