A kind of hybrid between high-profile political and literary periodicals and successful popular book digests targeted at a mass audience, the French magazine Caliban (1947-51) both tried to adjust to a fast-changing global marketplace and to defend a form of cultural legitimacy based on national claims against globalist domination. This article traces the evolution of the magazine's editorial venture in relation to questions connected to the issues of modernity and mobility. In particular, it aims at examining Caliban's implacable 'anti-digest' stance.