Podcast Summary: New Books Network with Sugata Bose

Episode: "Asia after Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long Twentieth Century"
Air Date: February 15, 2026
Host: Lukas (C)
Guest: Sugata Bose (B), Historian, Harvard University

Overview

In this episode, host Lukas talks with Sugata Bose about his 2024 book, Asia after Europe: Imagining a Continent in the Long Twentieth Century. The book explores the development of Asian universalism, the limits of nationalism, and how Asian intellectuals, activists, and artists challenged colonial and postcolonial paradigms. The conversation traces the evolution of cosmopolitan and nationalist ideas across Asia from the late 19th century through the post-colonial era, investigates the role of Islam and Buddhism, assesses the promise and pitfalls of Asian federations, and highlights the powerful role of artistic exchanges.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Colorful Cosmopolitanism vs. Colorless Cosmopolitanism

• Key Idea: Many Anglo-American philosophers see cosmopolitanism as "colorless," derived from abstract reason and detached from patriotism, but Bose argues for a more "colorful" cosmopolitanism in Asia that accommodates patriotism and anti-colonialism without devolving into chauvinism.
  • Quote:

    "There is a version of cosmopolitanism in Asia during the period that I was studying which could be usefully termed colorful cosmopolitanism, cosmopolitanism that did not shun patriotism but could not be reduced to narrow particularism just because there was a certain commitment to the anti colonial position." (B, 01:18)

2. Reassessing Nationalism in Asia

• Old-Style Patriotism vs. Modern Nationalism:
  • Figures like Rabindranath Tagore and Muhammad Iqbal embodied a love for the homeland but were mistrustful of aggressive modern nationalisms prevalent in Europe and America.
  • Distinctions are made between state-seeking, territorially bounded nationalism and an expansive, universalist nationalism.
• Universalist Nationalism:
  • Some Asian nationalists imagined solidarities that exceeded colonial borders, emphasizing extraterritorial and universal dimensions.
  • Quote:

    "There is a kind of patriotism which is based on emotional affinity for the homeland, but also has a rational dimension... and a kind of nationalism that has not just an extraterritorial, but a universalist dimension, a nationalism that exceeds the boundaries of the nation." (B, 04:20)

3. Elite and Subaltern Visions of Asia

• Acknowledges historiographical focus on elite intellectuals, but stresses the importance of non-elite, subaltern conceptions of Asia, especially given high mobility and labor flows in the studied period.
• Recognizes tensions between cross-class, vernacular, and cross-regional connections.
  • Quote:

    "I may have slightly privileged the elite aspect... but not entirely, because I was also looking for phases of material prosperity and poverty as a backdrop for these connections..." (B, 08:03)

4. Multiple Universalisms: Islamic and Asian Universalism

• Challenges the dominant focus on Buddhist connections; instead charts entanglements between Islamic and Asian universalisms, especially after WWI, such as the connection between Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement and the Khilafat movement.
• Muslim, Buddhist, and even communist internationalisms all overlapped at different times in central and southeast Asia.
  • Quote:

    "Islam was accepted as a deep connection binding together Asia. And secondly, there was something to be drawn upon for the politics of that period by acknowledging that the role of Islam." (B, 12:35)

5. Skepticism Toward the Nation-State Model

• Early anti-colonial Asian thinkers often rejected the hard borders and centralization copied from European nation-states. Bose links this suspicion to broader movements in Africa and elsewhere in the Global South.
• Oceanic and overland interregional arenas are highlighted as alternative spaces for solidarity.
  • Quote:

    "I think there was in fact a deep suspicion of the nation state concept because it seemed to so replicate the centralized colonial state structures..." (B, 18:42)

6. Historical Contingencies: The Nation-State Triumphant and Lost Possibilities

• "Asia" as an expansive, solidaristic concept suffered due to contingencies: the rise of Japanese imperialism, scramble for state power during decolonization, and internal power consolidations in India and China.
  • Early post-independence, there were still avenues for pan-Asian solidarity in informal exchanges, but the notion was eroded as statist borders hardened.

7. Asian Federation – Different from Europe?

• The concept of an Asiatic Federation, envisioned by figures like C.R. Das (India) and Sun Yat-sen (China), was marked by the inclusion of multiple races and religions.
• While the European Union institutionalized integration (albeit with exclusivity), Asian attempts were more pluralistic in imagination but largely failed to take durable institutional form, hampered by Japanese imperial ambitions and nationalistic rivalries.

8. The Dissipation of Asian Universalist Energy Post-Colonialism

• Host raises concern that the unifying urgency of anti-colonialism faded after independence. Bose concedes, but notes that cultural and artistic exchanges did persist into the 1950s.
  • Memorable Moment:
    Bose recounts the 1952 Asia Pacific Peace Conference in Beijing, where artists and intellectuals from India and China continued dialogues that exemplified the living legacy of Asian cosmopolitan culture. (B, 34:30)

9. Ideas vs. Institutions – Was Asian Universalism Doomed?

• Bose acknowledges that European universalism, for all its faults, achieved institutional reality via the EU; Asian universalism largely remained an ideal without comparable forms.

  • Quote & Story:

    "I arrived on a plane from London... all the white passengers, including Americans, passed through the European Union line and I was behind about 300 Algerians... it was a glaring example of fortress Europe, a kind of Asia that we would really never want..." (B, 42:56)

• Yet, Bose points to initiatives like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and RCEP as partial steps toward regional integration.

10. On the Prospect of Asian Political & Civil Society Renewal

• Warns of “statist” capture of the Asian identity (e.g., Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir Mohamad using 'Asian values' for domestic control).
• Suggests the need for ordinary people, civil society, intellectuals, and transnational labor to reclaim Asian connections from state-centric narratives.
  • Quote:

    "We have become a little too statist... my hope is for intellectuals, artists, scholars, ordinary people, workers who migrate... might begin to play a bigger role in fashioning, you know, what Asian connections should look like..." (B, 49:28)

11. The Centrality of Art and Artistic Exchange

• Bose repeatedly weaves in stories of artistic collaboration as pivotal to understanding Asia’s imagined solidarities and shared futures:
  • Abanindranath Tagore and Yokoyama Taikan’s collaborative painting.
  • The creation of Bharat Mata using Japanese wash technique, symbolizing "swadeshi internationalism" in place of insular nationalism.
  • Artistic exchanges continued as Asian borders became politicized; art “vaulted across the Himalayas.”
  • Quote:

    "...the iconic image of the nation as mother in India had a bi deshi, or a foreign touch. It was a Japanese touch... that is what art is capable of doing in enabling us to imagine a better Asia." (B, 54:14)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• Colorful vs. Colorless Cosmopolitanism:

  "Cosmopolitanism that did not shun patriotism but could not be reduced to narrow particularism..." (B, 01:18)

• Expansive Nationalism:

  "...nationalism that has not just an extraterritorial, but... a universalist dimension..." (B, 04:20)

• On Islam’s Role:

  "Islam was accepted as a deep connection binding together Asia..." (B, 12:35)

• Institutional Absence:

  "...the idea of Asia or the forms of Asian universalism may have been very creative and innovative, but unfortunately in the post colonial era we were unable to give it the same degree of institutional form as Europe." (B, 42:56)

• Art as Transcending Borders:

  "Art had vaulted across the Himalayas, so that is what art is capable of doing in enabling us to imagine a better Asia." (B, 54:14)

Important Segment Timestamps

• Introduction to "Colorful Cosmopolitanism": 01:18
• Distinguishing Nationalisms in Asia: 04:20
• Elite vs. Subaltern Asianism & Tagore's Southeast Asia Experience: 08:03
• Islamic and Asian Universalism – Overlaps: 12:35
• Asian Scepticism of the Nation-State: 18:42
• Why the Lesson Was Forgotten: 22:36
• Asian Federation vs. European Federation: 27:50
• Post-colonial Asia—Imagination Lost? 34:30
• Ideas vs. Institutions/Fortress Europe Memoir: 42:56
• Retrieving Asian Connections (Civil Society/Ordinary People): 49:28
• Why Art Matters for Asian Solidarity: 54:14

Conclusion

Sugata Bose’s Asia after Europe and this conversation make a compelling case for rethinking the legacies and possibilities of Asian universalism—intellectual, political, and artistic—beyond the narrow frame of the nation-state. While aware of the challenges and disappointments of the present, Bose sees value in recovering overlooked solidarities, the creative imagination of Asia’s past, and the cross-border power of art and civil society as guides to an alternative future for Asia.