Temperance and Cosmopolitanism

Temperance and Cosmopolitanism: African American Reformers in the Atlantic World, Volume 1, examines the intersection of cosmopolitan freedom and social restraint in the nineteenth century. Carole Lynn Stewart analyzes the lives and writings of influential African American authors and reformers, including Frances E. W. Harper and Martin Delany. This work of history and criticism explores how these figures used voluntary travel to counteract the trauma of enslavement, establishing a framework for freedom rooted in temperance.

This scholarly study of American literature and history focuses on the black Atlantic and the role of African American social reformers. By connecting abolitionism with the practice of temperance, the text challenges traditional narratives of European elite cosmopolitanism. The book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of nineteenth century cultural and religious studies, illustrating how diasporic communities utilized restraint to build a new civil society.