Human Rights and Revolutions - Hardcover

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 *

Now in a revised and updated edition with added original chapters, this acclaimed book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on the complex links between revolutionary struggles and human rights. Covering events as far removed from one another as the English Civil War, the Parisian upheavals of 1789, Latin American independence struggles, and protests in late twentieth-century China, the contributors explore the paradoxes of revolutions that have both helped spur new advances in thinking about human rights and produced regimes that commit a range of abuses. Exploring the changes over time in conceptions of human rights in Western and non-Western contexts, this work offers a unique window into the history of the modern world and a fresh context for understanding today's pressing issues.