Citizens of the world: Living in an age of accelerating globalisation

Citizens of the world: Living in an age of accelerating globalisation

In this article, Penelope J. Corfield emphasises that the pursuit of global cooperation is intricate and involves both governmental and non-governmental initiatives. While this process presents challenges, it also demonstrates how individuals can work together across borders to achieve shared interests, independent of nation-states. At various times, many people have declared themselves citizens of the world. The eminent physicist, Albert Einstein, was among them. He described nationalism as an infantile disease: ‘the measles of mankind’. At the end of the Second World War, he urged the case for establishing a world government. After all, it would be impossible for the German provinces of Bavaria and Brandenburg to go to war against each other once Germany had been successfully unified. Why not achieve global peace by global unification?