Book contents
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume IV
- General Introduction: What is America and the World?
- Introduction to Volume IV
- Part I Ordering a World of States
- Part II Challenging a World of States
- 10 US Foreign Policy and the End of Development
- 11 Oil and American Insecurity
- 12 US Mass Culture and Consumption in a Global Context
- 13 Imperial Visions of the World
- 14 Human Rights
- 15 Compassion and Humanitarianism in International Relations
- 16 Third World Internationalism and the Global Color Line
- 17 The Queering of US Geopolitics
- 18 Migration, War, and the Transformation of the US Population
- 19 Christian and Muslim Transnational Networks
- 20 Native Americans, Indigeneity, and US Foreign Policy
- 21 Environment, Climate, and Global Disorder
- 22 Détente and the Reconfiguration of Superpower Relations
- Part III New World Disorder?
- Index
14 - Human Rights
from Part II - Challenging a World of States
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 November 2021
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- The Cambridge History of America and the World
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Contributors to Volume IV
- General Introduction: What is America and the World?
- Introduction to Volume IV
- Part I Ordering a World of States
- Part II Challenging a World of States
- 10 US Foreign Policy and the End of Development
- 11 Oil and American Insecurity
- 12 US Mass Culture and Consumption in a Global Context
- 13 Imperial Visions of the World
- 14 Human Rights
- 15 Compassion and Humanitarianism in International Relations
- 16 Third World Internationalism and the Global Color Line
- 17 The Queering of US Geopolitics
- 18 Migration, War, and the Transformation of the US Population
- 19 Christian and Muslim Transnational Networks
- 20 Native Americans, Indigeneity, and US Foreign Policy
- 21 Environment, Climate, and Global Disorder
- 22 Détente and the Reconfiguration of Superpower Relations
- Part III New World Disorder?
- Index
Summary
America’s new global power after 1945 was central to the rise of universal human rights as a set of practices and ideals. The new moral language thrived when it received official US backing and usually withered when it did not. Domestic and transnational movements also laid claim to these ideals to press for changes in how states treat their own citizens. Over time their efforts enshrined a view of individual rights as the business of the international community and the domain of international law rather than a matter of strictly internal sovereignty. As the language became global, the rest of the world harnessed and contested human rights ideals in ways that changed Americans’ own aspirations at home and abroad.
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- The Cambridge History of America and the World , pp. 328 - 348Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022