Why read The American Language of Rights?

Book cover of The American Language of Rights

Book description

Richard A. Primus examines three crucial periods in American history (the late eighteenth century, the civil war and the 1950s and 1960s) in order to demonstrate how the conceptions of rights prevailing at each of these times grew out of reactions to contemporary social and political crises. His innovative approach…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The American Language of Rights as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Nat Rubner

Author

A really interesting book that focuses on three periods in US history to demonstrate that conceptions of rights are determined by time and place.

That conceptions and uses of rights language are responses to specific political questions of the day, questions looking for a political answer, rather than, as human rights advocates are inclined to assume, a manifestation of a continuum of a single human rights tradition stretching back several thousand years.

From Nat's list on the intelligent person’s guide to human rights.