Historians have often overlooked Anacharsis Cloots (1755–1794) or deemed him deranged for claiming to be the ‘orator of the human race’ and advocating a ‘universal republic’ based on human sovereignty. This study is the first comprehensive examination of Cloots’s writings and political actions, aiming to rehabilitate him as a significant political thinker. It argues that his ideas represent a distinct branch of republicanism during the Atlantic revolutions: cosmopolitan republicanism. The introduction posits that 18th-century French cosmopolitanism emerged as a new philosophical tradition with various themes, which are analyzed in Cloots’s works. The first chapter offers a brief overview of his life, while the second discusses his self-identification as an orator and the significance of his pamphlets, countering the notion that they lack philosophical merit. Subsequent chapters delve into Cloots’s philosophical system through the themes introduced earlier, exploring his concepts of reason and science, natural law and nature’s role in moral and political thought, and the relationship between humanity and individuals in society. The final chapter summarizes the components of Cloots’s cosmopolitan republicanism and suggests avenues for further research on other political thinkers of the Atlantic revolutions, inviting historians and political theorists to engage with this rich intellectual landscape.
