Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
This original and important book examines the paradoxical yet fundamental relationship between revolutions and the discourse of human rights as it has developed over the last four centuries. In a multidisciplinary collection of essays, which includes pieces by activists as well as scholars, contributors compare times and places as remote from each other as seventeenth-century England and contemporary Kosovo, bringing to bear ideas and methodologies associated with disciplines ranging from cultural history to political philosophy. In doing so, they seek to shed light on a crucial conundrum: on the one hand, revolutionary regimes often have been responsible for horrific human rights abuses, and yet on the other, revolutionary struggles often serve as a crucible to elevate appreciation for the importance of human rights.
Synopsis
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.