Human rights in the twentieth century
By: edited by Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann
Series: Human rights in history
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 351
ISBN-13: 9780521194266; 9780521142571
Subjects: Human rights; Cross-cultural studies
Description: "Has there always been an inalienable 'right to have rights' as part of the human condition, as Hannah Arendt famously argued? The contributions to this volume examine how human rights came to define the bounds of universal morality in the course of the political crises and conflicts of the twentieth century. Although human rights are often viewed as a self-evident outcome of this history, the essays collected here make clear that human rights are a relatively recent invention that emerged in contingent and contradictory ways. Focusing on specific instances of their assertion or violation during the past century, this volume analyzes the place of human rights in various arenas of global politics, providing an alternative framework for understanding the political and legal dilemmas that these conflicts presented. In doing so, this volume captures the state of the art in a field that historians have only recently begun to explore"--Provided by publisher.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: genealogies of human rights  -- Stefan-Ludwig Hoffmann -- Part I.; title: The Emergence of Human Rights Regimes: gt1.; title: The end of civilization and the rise of human rights: the mid-twentieth century disjuncture  -- Mark Mazower; -- 2.; title: The 'human rights revolution' at work: displaced persons in post-war Europe  -- G. Daniel Cohen; -- 3.; title: 'Legal diplomacy': law, politics, and the genesis of postwar European human rights  -- Mikael Rask Madsen -- Part II.; title: Postwar Universalism and Legal Theory: -- 4. dtPersonalism, community, and the origins of human rights / -- Samuel Moyn; -- 5.; title: René; Cassin: Les droit de l'homme and the universality of human rights, 1945-1966  -- Glenda Sluga; -- 6.; title: Rudolf Laun and the human rights of Germans in occupied and early West Germany  -- Lora Wildenthal -- Part III.; title: Human Rights, State Socialism, and Dissent: -- 7.; title: Embracing and contesting: the Soviet Union and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948-1958  -- Jennifer Amos; -- 8.; title: Soviet rights-talk in the post-Stalin era  -- Benjamin Nathans; -- 9.; title: Charter 77 and the Roma: human rights and dissent in socialist Czechoslovakia  -- Celia Donert -- Part IV.; title: Genocide, Humanitarianism, and the Limits of Law: -- 10.; title: Toward world law? Human rights and the failure of the legalist paradigm of war  -- Devin O. Pendas; -- 11.; title: 'Source of embarrassment': human rights, state of emergency, and the wars of decolonization  -- Fabian Klose; -- 12.; title: The United Nations, humanitarianism, and human rights: war crimes/genocide trials for Pakistani soldiers in Bangladesh, 1971-1974  -- A. Dirk Moses -- Part V.; title: Human Rights, Sovereignty, and the Global Condition: -- 13.; title: African nationalists and human rights, 1940s-1970s  -- Andreas Eckert; -- 14.; title: The International Labour Organization and the globalization of rights, 1944-1970  -- Daniel Roger Maul; -- 15.; title: 'Under a magnifying glass': the international human rights campaign against Chile in the seventies -- Jan Eckel.