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Preliminary Material /Massimo Pendenza -- Introduction: Is Classical Sociology Still in Vogue? A Controversial Legacy /Massimo Pendenza -- Simmel on Global Society /Vittorio Cotesta -- Tönnies Today: A Living Legacy in the Sociology of Globalization and Globality /David Inglis -- Vilfredo Pareto's Contribution to a Sociology of Globalization /Emanuela Susca -- Understanding the Social: Cosmopolitanism and Gabriel Tarde's Cosmopolitics /Michael Schillmeier -- The "Social" as Reciprocity: Marcel Mauss and the Idea of Nation /Dario Verderame -- "Merging the National with the Human Ideal": Émile Durkheim on Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism /Massimo Pendenza -- Ubi Bene, Ibi Patria: Patriotism, Nationalism and Internationalism in Robert Michels' Reflection /Federico Trocini -- Beyond Methodological Nationalism? Concepts of Nationhood in German Liberal Social Thought of the Weimar Years /Austin Harrington -- Index of Names /Massimo Pendenza.

Nowadays, the widespread view is that classical sociology is tainted with 'methodological nationalism and it would appear that there has been a significant overlap between social and political space. We disagree with this point of view for three reasons: (1) by dealing with the global world, classical sociology has already glimpsed the possibility of going beyond the nation-state as a unit of analysis; (2) having operated above all with the notion of 'social' rather than 'national', its categories are transnational; and (3) when classical sociology has dealt with national society, studies have not reified it within its political boundaries. Consequently, in our opinion, classical sociology highlights both analytical categories that go beyond the ontology of the nation-state as well as new socio-political forms defined within the trajectory of modernity under the pressure of globalization processes.

"For Durkheim, sociology was by no means a realm of knowledge closed in its specificity. It was rather an open science, permeable to contributions coming from other disciplines. For him, the task of sociology was to study what held societies together and to provide a place for reflective change and progressive development"--

Since 2008, the European crisis, in its many forms, has brought about an increase in inequality and has loosened the social bonds between EU citizens. It is the young who have been hit hardest by the consequences of the crisis, as much in the short term as in the long term. One would reasonably expect the European crisis to have affected young people's sense of belonging to Europe and to the EU. We will deal with this issue from the perspective of cosmopolitanism. In particular, this article, based on data from two surveys conducted in 2014 and 2018 among young university students in southern Italy, will attempt to ascertain whether the crisis is the background for young people's changed 'cosmopolitan openness' (their sense of belonging and attitude to other people), their ideas about Europe, and the depth and manner of their support for the EU; it looks at those dimensions, both jointly and separately, bringing out the finer points. While cosmopolitan feelings and support for the EU do not seem to have changed to any great extent among the young people interviewed, they are far from presenting a homogeneous group as regards their views on diversity, Europe, and their support for the European Union.