its effectiveness, and may indeed require a renewal of more collective notions of utopia in order to realize its promises. 7 of 10 people found the following review helpful 5.0 out of 5 stars Utopia or bust Oct 20 2010 By Hande Z - Published on Amazon.com Format: Hardcover | Amazon Verified Purchase If this is an alternative history of human rights it is because Samuel Moyn makes us examine the development of human rights in spite of the missed opportunities such as those that accrued in past struggles from colonialism to independence. Why was it that Ho Chi Minh failed to grasp the straw that the declaration of Human Rights 1948 offered him? How was it that in spite of all the missed opportunities human rights managed to add flesh to the civil rights movement? He examines the American turn in which the Reagan and Carter administration managed to make human rights a distinctly political rhetoric and from there to the modern flash in which human rights became a universal and prolific cry. Yet, in spite of all that, we are far from the utopia that human rights hold such promise. That might well be because "Human rights were the victims of their own vagueness". The deep and intellectual study carries with it a pessimistic outlook, but one can see a glimmer of hope - provided that we understand what it means and how it should be.