Book excerpt: A Cosmopolitan Sensibility draws our attention toward a total way of being and not just a form of communication. It calls for a heightened appreciation and capacity to respond sensitively to the plethora of complex social and cultural influences around us. And it calls urgently for greater care and compassion in our being with others in the complex multiverse of the 21st century.All of the contributors to this book share this sense of urgency for making our social worlds better and all of the authors find the idea of a cosmopolitan sensibility offers fresh ideas and new hopes for doing so. In each chapter, the authors explore a particular facet of this cosmopolitan sensibility that they find particularly compelling. What are the skills and mindsets called for with a cosmopolitan sensibility? How can we hold the ensuing incompleteness and complexity as we live into our differences? What does it take to foster this sensibility in young children, in families and in organizations? How can we create a stronger participatory democracy with such a sensibility? What changes in stories are called for to change conflict situations? How can an appreciation of a cosmopolitan sensibility help our servicemen and women move between military and non-military communities? And how can we sensibly go on in a relationally-responsive and reflexive manner to make better social worlds?