Human Rights and Revolutions

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.