Inventing Human Rights: A History [Hardcover]

Lynn Hunt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0393060950 | ISBN-13: 978-0393060959

How were human rights invented, and what is their turbulent history?

Human rights is a concept that only came to the forefront during the eighteenth century. When the American Declaration of Independence declared "all men are created equal" and the French proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man during their revolution, they were bringing a new guarantee into the world. But why then? How did such a revelation come to pass? In this extraordinary work of cultural and intellectual history, Professor Lynn Hunt grounds the creation of human rights in the changes that authors brought to literature, the rejection of torture as a means of finding out truth, and the spread of empathy. Hunt traces the amazing rise of rights, their momentous eclipse in the nineteenth century, and their culmination as a principle with the United Nations's proclamation in 1948. She finishes this work for our time with a diagnosis of the state of human rights today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This comprehensive work traces the development of human rights from its conceptual roots in the Enlightenment to its full expression in the United Nation's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Hunt begins with a wonderfully detailed lexicographical survey of 18th century uses of rights language ("rights of man," "natural rights," "rights of humanity") to show the many currents that led to the first modern declaration of human rights, the Bill of Rights. She then triangulates the upswing in rights language with both the appearance of the novel of letters (such as Rousseau's Julie and Samuel Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa) and the rise of portraiture in the mid- to late-18th century. These particular art forms, she argues, fostered a sense of individuality in their audience and empathy for their subjects, most frequently "regular folks" rather than nobles, royalty, or saints. She then takes the reader through 250 years of rights legislation, covering the French Revolution's Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, various anti-torture measures and 20th century campaigns against human rights violations, among others. Despite the obvious academic grounding of this sweeping work, it is aimed at a wider audience and will appeal to most readers interested either in the history of human rights or in European or American history.
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Review

A must-read for anyone who cares about civil society today. Brilliant, original, incisive, and accessible. -- Joan Dejean, author of The Essence of Style: How the French Invented High Fashion, Fine Food, Chic Cafes, Style, Sophistication, and Glamour

Written by one of the leading historians of our time. Lynn Hunt's book greatly enriches the literature on human rights. -- Amartya Sen, winner of the Nobel Prize

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton (March 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393060950
• ISBN-13: 978-0393060959
• Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 5.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #453,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A step towards understanding human rights as cultural history May 16, 2007

By Joshua Malle

Format:Hardcover

"Inventing Human Rights" is a short, jargon-free book that would be appropriate for an undergraduate class or general readership. The introduction and first chapter is an examination of the cultural origins of the human rights ideology. The second chapter is a history of torture. Chapters 3-5 are a "conventional" history of human rights as traced through laws, constitutions, political philosophy, etc. from roughly 1750 to the present. There is a refreshing emphasis on the French Enlightenment (which is too often neglected in works in English).

Regarding research methods, Professor Hunt is good at tracing the circulation of ideas via the circulation of books. Careful attention is paid to when certain phrases (e.g. "rights of man", "human rights") were first used, how many times important books were reprinted, what percentage of 18th century homes and libraries they could be found in, and literacy rates.

The introduction poses the question "How is it that rights came to seem self-evident in the late 18th century?" Prof. Hunt proposes an explanation in terms of the diffusion of the cultural practices of "autonomy" and "empathy", where autonomy supplies the substance of the new ethic and empathy, the motive (pp. 29-30).

When Hunt writes of autonomy as a "cultural practice" she is referring primarily to the increasing sense of delicacy regarding the human body described in the work of Norbert Elias. She thinks, for instance, that here one can find the origin of the new repugnance at judicial torture (pp 82-83)....

Following Benedict Anderson's work on nationalism, Hunt maintains that just as the rise of printing made it possible for people who were widely dispersed to conceptualize themselves as part of a single national polity, the late 18th century craze for epistolary novels helped readers to conceptualize a common humanity (p.32). Novels helped readers empathize more habitually and with a greater variety of people (pp. 38-42). They also provided a model of "interiority" and autonomy for readers to emulate (pp. 45, 48).

What makes cultural history exciting (and controversial) is the way that cultural historians derive changes in moral sensibilities from changes social structure, thereby offering a social-scientific explanation of why, when and how our values change over time. For example, in the work of Norbert Elias, the increasing sense of shame over bodily functions was caused by the transformation of the aristocracy from a warrior caste to a class dependent on royal favor whose political survival required charm. And in Michel Foucault's (classic) account of the abolition of torture the adoption of "the gentle way in punishment" was due to the diffusion of new strategies of social control oriented towards efficiency and productivity which were necessary to the rise of capitalism.

But Hunt has little to say about the relationship between the new ideals and structural demands of the emerging economic order. Rather, she depicts the human rights ideology as a kind of emergent property, caused by (but not beholden to) the increasing prosperity of the late 18th century, which, once invented, proceeds with an "inner logic" of its own. (p. 34, 150ff). Read more ›

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars How compassion works May 8, 2007

By Margaret R. Miles

Format:Hardcover

Hunt's thesis, as I read this fine book, is that although compassion was not a new idea in the eighteenth century, injunctions to compassion (from Christianity, for example) were not working to affect public life. Torture, public executions, etc. were habituating Western European populations to high levels of violence in daily life. Associating the rise of the novel to new sensibilities that began to alter society, Hunt argues that novels enabled large numbers of people (especially the designers and administrators of society) to understand the subjectivity of people unlike them, and thus to empathize with the sufferings of others. She suggests that these new sensibilities had real social effects in the development of human rights. Hunt traces these real effects in the language by which human rights came to be seen as universal and "inalienable." Historical theses based on simultaneity can never be proved, but Hunt makes a strong case for novels' ability to make compassion work in eighteenth century Western Europe.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Long and Unending Journey toward Rights June 7, 2007

By R. Hardy HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Three hundred years ago, the idea that people in the world should regard themselves as equals or that all had important rights just because they were humans would have largely been regarded as laughable. Now human rights are taken for granted, and even are regarded as more important than that old standard, property rights. How did such a change happen? Lynn Hunt, a professor of modern European history, has some ideas, and has related them in _Inventing Human Rights: A History_ (Norton). There was a Bill of Rights in England in 1689, but it merely referred to "ancient rights and liberties" that derived from the tradition of English law. It did not have what Hunt describes as three interlocking qualities that are essential to human rights: "... rights must be natural (inherent in human beings), equal (the same for everyone) and universal (applicable everywhere)." The acceptance of such rights was a revolution in human thought and in the understanding of how governments were to prioritize their functions. It is a great story, one we can be proud of, and though progress toward acknowledgement of human rights has stumbled and halted at times, it has proved unstoppable.

The boom in concepts of human rights during the eighteenth century can never be fully explained, but Hunt thinks she has a clue. People began to read novels, especially epistolary ones in which characters themselves wrote out their feelings onto the page. Reading such a novel made people view the characters on the pages with empathy because the "narrative form facilitated the development of a 'character,' that is, a person with an inner self." The more lurid of the novels included scenes of torture, producing a revulsion in readers that would eventually help end the long tradition of judicial torture.... It is perhaps not coincidental that Thomas Jefferson was a committed novel reader, and it was he who wrote (and the American Congress who approved) the first great proclamation of human rights in 1776. Jefferson's declaration led to the even more influential French Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen in 1789. There seemed an unstoppable cascade of inclusion in France: Protestants and Jews got political rights by 1791, as did men without property in 1792. Slaves were emancipated in 1794. There was, however, a long gap between the American and French declarations and the next comparable document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 which drew upon its two predecessors. Hunt explains that there were forces in the nineteenth century that held human rights back. Pseudo-scientific claims about race and gender cast erroneous doubt on any fundamental human equalities. There was an increase in nationalism, an emphasis on collective efforts rather than on individual liberties. Only after two calamitous world wars was there a reconsideration for declaring the universalism originally engendered in the Enlightenment.

The battle to ensure and extend human rights continues, because governments are eager to impinge upon such rights in order to continue power. Hunt's sharpest examples are about torture. There are some grisly examples given here, and torturing criminals to get confessions or to make them declare their accomplices was simply the way governments used to work. Civil and church lawyers for centuries sorted out just what torture could be applied for just what situation. After the French Declaration, however, it took deputies in France only six weeks to completely abolish judicial torture. Here is the shock, however: Louis XVI had already outlawed torture as a means of getting confessions. But he had allowed it to continue for what was called "the preliminary question," that is to torture the accused into giving out the names of any accomplices. It is disheartening that the current administration finds that it is worthwhile to consider the use of "harsh interrogation" procedures for exactly the same sorts of reasons. Human rights were invented and acknowledged eloquently a couple of centuries ago, but they haven't fully come into force. Read more ›

27 of 36 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit thin April 5, 2007

By C. M. Clarke

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I felt this book gave a fairly good general overview, but based on the title had hoped it would go into greater depth on the philosophical foundations of human rights (the Enlightenment philosophers etc.)

29 of 39 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Rather vague account of human rights April 30, 2007

By J. Grattan TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This book is an overview of human rights as they have been pronounced and practiced over the last 250 years. The principal documents that have described human rights are the Declaration of Independence of 1776, followed shortly by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen by the French National Assembly in 1789, and the United Nation's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The author does discuss some preconditions for advancing the notion of human rights, but the concept has been vague from the start and this book does little to shore up the concept.

In the first place, many declarations of human rights assume that they are self-evident and then make feeble attempts to define the same - an exercise in contradiction. The author maintains that human rights must be "natural (inherent in human beings); equal (the same for everyone); and universal (applicable everywhere)." But they are "not the rights of humans in a state of nature; ... they are rights in the secular political world." Jeremy Bentham, 18th century thinker, found the notion of natural rights to be "simple nonsense." Jefferson maintains that unalienable rights actually exist in nature. Hobbes on the other hand finds a state of nature to be constant warfare - survival at best. Don't expect any resolution concerning fundamental definitions and contradictions of human rights.

The author notes that the epistolary novel rose in the late 18th century and created empathy for the thoughts and predicaments of common people especially in dealing with social betters. Characters were seen to be autonomous with the capability of exercising sound and independent moral judgments.... With the sanctity of the individual also came calls for the elimination of barbarous criminal punishments that persisted well into the late 18th century. The author is not clear as to whether such changes in thinking actually resulted in declarations of human rights; but one can say that they were coincident.

Universal declarations of rights often undergo some sort of slippage to fit nationalistic characteristics and purposes. Discrimination and worse over race, ethnicity, gender, and religion have often been practiced in the twentieth century despite formal declarations of human rights. The notion of different biological characteristics has been used to justify, at the least, unequal application of rights and, at the worst, genocide. Communists and socialists have criticized human rights as permitting property rights to maintain unjust societies. It can hardly be ignored the countless times that human rights have been invoked to justify their very violation. The French reaction to the Revolution is a good place to start.

The book is mildly interesting. It does not grapple in any profound way with the foundation of human rights, how and by whom they are established, and their equitable practice and enforcement. The reality is that rights are far more limited than grandiose declarations and propagandistic nationalistic celebrations imply. Read more ›