Synopsis
Micheline Ishay recounts the dramatic struggle for human rights across the ages in a book that brilliantly synthesizes historical and intellectual developments from the Mesopotamian Codes of Hammurabi to today's era of globalization. As she chronicles the clash of social movements, ideas, and armies that have played a part in this struggle, Ishay illustrates how the history of human rights has evolved from one era to the next through texts, cultural traditions, and creative expression. Writing with verve and extraordinary range, she develops a framework for understanding contemporary issues from the debate over globalization to the intervention in Kosovo to the climate for human rights after September 11, 2001. The only comprehensive history of human rights available, the book will be essential reading for anyone concerned with humankind's quest for justice and dignity. Ishay structures her chapters around six core questions that have shaped human rights debate and scholarship: What are the origins of human rights? Why did the European vision of human rights triumph over those of other civilizations? Has socialism made a lasting contribution to the legacy of human rights? Are human rights universal or culturally bound? Must human rights be sacrificed to the demands of national security? Is globalization eroding or advancing human rights? As she explores these questions, Ishay also incorporates notable documents - writings, speeches, and political statements - from activists, writers, and thinkers throughout history.
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About the Author
Micheline R. Ishay is Director of the Human Rights Program at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She is the author of Internationalism and Its Betrayal (1995), editor of The Human Rights Reader: Major Speeches, Essays, and Documents from the Bible to the Present (1997), and coeditor of The Nationalism Reader (1995).
From the Back Cover
"A definitive account of the history of human rights told from the perspective of those struggling to obtain them. Using the Enlightenment, industrialization, war, national self-determination, and globalization as lenses through which to look at their evolution, Ishay brings both historical context and conceptual acuity to modern debates about the role of human rights in a multicultural world. Her encompassing and compassionate approach issues in a book equally valuable to scholars, students, and citizens."—Benjamin Barber, University of Maryland, author of Jihad vs. McWorld
"This well-written book, chock-full of knowledge, presents a history of the idea, or ideas, of human rights through the prism of the author's thoughtful views on key controversies that bedevil human rights discourse to this day."—Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, Chair, University of Essex Human Rights Centre; Member, (UN) Human Rights Committee
"The first account of human rights as embedded in the history of political theory, relating it to the basic issues of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Erudite and non-dogmatic, Ishay reaches beyond individual human rights to issues of economic, cultural and national rights, and shows how the campaign for human rights was instrumental in bringing down oppressive regimes in the last decades... Humane and generous in its approach, brilliant in its conception and presentation."—Shlomo Avineri, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
"This well-written book, chock-full of knowledge, presents a history of the idea, or ideas, of human rights through the prism of the author's thoughtful views on key controversies that bedevil human rights discourse to this day."—Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, Chair, University of Essex Human Rights Centre; Member, (UN) Human Rights Committee
"The first account of human rights as embedded in the history of political theory, relating it to the basic issues of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Erudite and non-dogmatic, Ishay reaches beyond individual human rights to issues of economic, cultural and national rights, and shows how the campaign for human rights was instrumental in bringing down oppressive regimes in the last decades... Humane and generous in its approach, brilliant in its conception and presentation."—Shlomo Avineri, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
From the Inside Flap
"A definitive account of the history of human rights told from the perspective of those struggling to obtain them. Using the Enlightenment, industrialization, war, national self-determination, and globalization as lenses through which to look at their evolution, Ishay brings both historical context and conceptual acuity to modern debates about the role of human rights in a multicultural world. Her encompassing and compassionate approach issues in a book equally valuable to scholars, students, and citizens."—Benjamin Barber, University of Maryland, author of Jihad vs. McWorld
"This well-written book, chock-full of knowledge, presents a history of the idea, or ideas, of human rights through the prism of the author's thoughtful views on key controversies that bedevil human rights discourse to this day."—Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, Chair, University of Essex Human Rights Centre; Member, (UN) Human Rights Committee
"The first account of human rights as embedded in the history of political theory, relating it to the basic issues of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Erudite and non-dogmatic, Ishay reaches beyond individual human rights to issues of economic, cultural and national rights, and shows how the campaign for human rights was instrumental in bringing down oppressive regimes in the last decades... Humane and generous in its approach, brilliant in its conception and presentation."—Shlomo Avineri, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
"This well-written book, chock-full of knowledge, presents a history of the idea, or ideas, of human rights through the prism of the author's thoughtful views on key controversies that bedevil human rights discourse to this day."—Professor Sir Nigel Rodley, Chair, University of Essex Human Rights Centre; Member, (UN) Human Rights Committee
"The first account of human rights as embedded in the history of political theory, relating it to the basic issues of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Erudite and non-dogmatic, Ishay reaches beyond individual human rights to issues of economic, cultural and national rights, and shows how the campaign for human rights was instrumental in bringing down oppressive regimes in the last decades... Humane and generous in its approach, brilliant in its conception and presentation."—Shlomo Avineri, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The History of Human Rights
From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era
By Micheline R. IshayUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Copyright © 2008 Micheline R. Ishay
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-23496-3All rights reserved.
Contents
Preface to the 2008 Edition, ix,
Acknowledgments, xxiii,
Introduction, 1,
1. Early Ethical Contributions to Human Rights, 15,
2. Human Rights and the Enlightenment: The Development of a Liberal and Secular Perspective on Human Rights, 63,
3. Human Rights and the Industrial Age: The Development of a Socialist Perspective on Human Rights, 117,
4. The World Wars: The Institutionalization of International Rights and the Right to Self-Determination, 173,
5. Globalization and Its Impact on Human Rights, 245,
6. Promoting Human Rights in the Twenty-first Century: The Changing Arena of Struggle, 315,
Appendix: A Chronology of Events and Writings Related to Human Rights, 357,
Notes, 369,
References, 405,
Index, 431,
CHAPTER 1
Early Ethical Contributions to Human Rights
There are no universal ethics. This was at least what the Greek historian Herodotus argued more than two thousand years ago, illustrating his point with a story about the Persian king Darius. The king, wrote Herodotus, summoned several Greeks and asked them how much money it would take for them to eat the dead bodies of their fathers. Outraged, they proclaimed their refusal to perform such a gruesome act at any price, adding that cremation of the dead was a sacred obligation. Darius then called upon some Indians, who by custom ate their deceased parents, and asked them if they would consider burning the bodies of their fathers. Insulted, they replied that such an act would be a horrible crime. The lesson, concluded Herodotus, was simply that each nation regards its own customs as superior.
Through the ages, Herodotus's observation seemed an apt characterization of humankind's immersion in war after war, its dark implications nowhere more apparent than in the twentieth century's near triumph of Nazism and fascism, in which doctrines of national supremacy were used to justify the annihilation of presumably inferior cultures and races. When those forces were finally turned back after six years of brutal world war, the survivors were determined as never before to resurrect a lasting universal ethics from the ashes of unprecedented destruction. At Dumbarton Oaks in 1945, the victorious Allied powers set the stage for a new international order; at San Francisco that same year, they unveiled their plan for an international organization that would secure peace and human rights; and in New York three years later, the General Assembly of the United Nations ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Overcoming obstacles posed by divergent cultures and deeply rooted ideological divisions, the source of so much bloodshed across the centuries, would hardly be an easy task. None were more aware of that challenge than the members of the Human Rights Commission, which had been charged in 1945 with the drafting of the declaration. After all, the commission members themselves, under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), represented starkly contrasting cultural backgrounds and philosophies. One may wonder how the Chinese Confucian philosopher, diplomat, and commission vice-chairman Pen-Chung Chang (1892–1957), the Lebanese existentialist philosopher and rapporteur Charles Malik (1906–1987), and the French legal scholar and later Nobel Prize laureate René Cassin (1887–1976) were able to arrive at a comm
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The History of Human Rights : From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era
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University of California Press, 2004
ISBN 10: 0520234960
ISBN 13: 9780520234963
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