Human Rights and Revolutions

This book is a necessary addition to a research collection, because it provides a comprehensive framework and well chosen set of cases to illustrate the state of the art of the major debates in the human rights field. * H-Net: Humanities and Social Science Reviews Online * The authors argue convincingly that without revolutions human rights would never have become a political reality, even though countries that never have had a revolution have done a better job of preserving freedom. Many of the essays are interrelated in that they illustrate one or another or both of these themes. On the whole, this is an interesting, worthwhile, and thought-provoking book. Social and political philosophers might gain a great deal from understanding the history of the concepts that they use and argue about. -- Robert van Wyk * Human Rights Revolution *

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. Greg Grandin is professor of history at New York University. Lynn Hunt is Eugen Weber Professor of French History at the University of California, Los Angeles. Marilyn B. Young is professor of history at New York University.

Introduction: Human Rights and Revolutions Part I: Two Opening Perspectives Chapter 1: The Paradoxical Origins of Human Rights Chapter 2: The Chinese Revolution and Contemporary Paradoxes Part II: The English, American, and Russian Revolutions Chapter 3: Tradition, Human Rights, and the English Revolution Chapter 4: Natural Rights in the American Revolution: The American Amalgam Chapter 5: A European Experience: Human Rights and Citizenship in Revolutionary Russia Part III: Asian and African Case Studies Chapter 6: An Enlightenment of Outcasts: Some Vietnamese Stories Chapter 7: India, Human Rights, and Asian Values Chapter 8: What Absence Is Made Of: Human Rights in Africa Part IV: A Human Rights Revolution? Chapter 9: (Homo)sexuality, Human Rights, and Revolution in Latin America Chapter 10: Ethics and the Rearmament of Imperialism: The French Case Chapter 11: The Strange Career of Radical Islam Part V: A Concluding Perspective Chapter 12: Human Rights and Empire's Embrace: A Latin American Counterpoint