The cosmopolitan discourse in German and European literary history and history of ideas of the 18th century is the focus of this study. The book discusses the concept and history of 'cosmopolitanism' according to theories by Koselleck, Luhmann, Derrida, Habermas, Gumbrecht, etc., and reconstructs this important discourse of the European enlightenment based on the works of Rousseau, Kant, Wieland, Schiller, Jean Paul, Schlegel and Eichendorff against the background of European literary and intellectual history.