Book description
How were human rights invented, and how does their tumultuous history influence their perception and our ability to protect them today? From Professor Lynn Hunt comes this extraordinary cultural and intellectual history, which traces the roots of human rights to the rejection of torture as a means for finding the…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Inventing Human Rights as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Many human rights activists have to be focused intensely on the events of today and the consequences for tomorrow, this often allows little time for broader reading. Lynn Hunt offers a detailed and very readable analysis and argument of the history and development of contemporary human rights. I found all of her book illuminating and the connections she described eye-opening.
From Duncan's list on about protest.
This book sits on my bookcase right next to Jean Starobinski’s wonderful The Invention of Liberty. Both books promise an analysis of the rise of a specific concept – human rights and liberty – during an era where classical liberalism as we know it was taking shape. What I love about Hunt’s book is that she not only puts a tracer on the notion of human rights in political discourse; she tells a story of how human rights arose from a set of psychological and epistemological forces that coalesced during the eighteenth century (often reflected in the novel and…
From Andrew's list on the Enlightenment and the world is created.
If you love Inventing Human Rights...
The High House
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
Want books like Inventing Human Rights?
Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 95 books like Inventing Human Rights.
Share your top 3 reads of 2025!
And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.
1,210
readers submitted
so far, will you?
📚 If you like Inventing Human Rights, you might also like...
Aggressor
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
