The Human Rights Reader: Major Political Essays, Speeches and Documents from the Bible to the Present
Ishay (Graduate Sch. of International Studies and director of the human rights program, Univ. of Denver) takes a historical approach to human-rights literature in this book. Her introduction summarizes each writing and its significance, with no critical analysis or comparison of any of the selections. To ground the reader in the religious/philosophical origins of human rights thinking, she chooses writings from Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam as well as classical philosophers. She then selects significant political writers such as Rousseau, Paine, Marx, and Gandhi, as well as lesser-known authors' works on women's, gay, and minority rights to illustrate the development of human rights consciousness during important historical periods. A selection of contemporary international documents such as the Helsinki Agreement and the Beijing Declaration conclude the collection. Although the work is relatively comprehensive, its appropriateness for library collections should be questioned, since both academic and public libraries would have many of the original works.?Jill W. Ortner, SUNY at Buffalo Lib.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.