Author: Dan Edelstein Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022679430X Category : History Languages : en Pages : 334
Book Description
By the end of the eighteenth century, politicians in America and France were invoking the natural rights of man to wrest sovereignty away from kings and lay down universal basic entitlements. Exactly how and when did “rights” come to justify such measures? In On the Spirit of Rights, Dan Edelstein answers this question by examining the complex genealogy of the rights that regimes enshrined in the American and French Revolutions. With a lively attention to detail, he surveys a sprawling series of debates among rulers, jurists, philosophers, political reformers, writers, and others who were all engaged in laying the groundwork for our contemporary systems of constitutional governance. Every seemingly new claim about rights turns out to be a variation on a theme, as late medieval notions were subtly repeated and refined to yield the talk of “rights” we recognize today. From the Wars of Religion to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, On the Spirit of Rights is a sweeping tour through centuries of European intellectual history and an essential guide to our ways of thinking about human rights today.
Author: Dan Edelstein Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 0226184501 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
What was the Enlightenment? Though many scholars have attempted to solve this riddle, none has made as much use of contemporary answers as Dan Edelstein does here. In seeking to recover where, when, and how the concept of “the Enlightenment” first emerged, Edelstein departs from genealogies that trace it back to political and philosophical developments in England and the Dutch Republic. According to Edelstein, by the 1720s scholars and authors in France were already employing a constellation of terms—such as l’esprit philosophique—to describe what we would today call the Enlightenment. But Edelstein argues that it was within the French Academies, and in the context of the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, that the key definition, concepts, and historical narratives of the Enlightenment were crafted. A necessary corrective to many of our contemporary ideas about the Enlightenment, Edelstein’s book turns conventional thinking about the period on its head. Concise, clear, and contrarian, The Enlightenment will be welcomed by all teachers and students of the period.
Author: Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521369749 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 814
Book Description
The Spirit of the Laws is, without question, one of the central texts in the history of eighteenth-century thought, yet there has been no complete, scholarly English-language edition since that of Thomas Nugent, published in 1750. This lucid translation renders Montesquieu's problematic text newly accessible to a fresh generation of students, helping them to understand quite why Montesquieu was such an important figure in the early enlightenment and why The Spirit of the Laws was, for example, such an influence upon those who framed the American constitution. Fully annotated, this edition focuses attention upon Montesquieu's use of sources and his text as a whole, rather than upon those opening passages towards which critical energies have traditionally been devoted, and a select bibliography and chronology are provided for those coming to Montesquieu's work for the first time.
Author: Sarah Barringer Gordon Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 9780674046542 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 358
Book Description
The author explores the interaction between the Constitution and religious practices in public life. School prayer, religion in prison, and same-sex marriages have created controversies challenging the Supreme Court and the nature of laws regarding religion. The author addresses such issues to trace the relationship between church and state.
Author: Mab Segrest Publisher: Rutgers University Press ISBN: 9780813531014 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 284
Book Description
Veteran activist Mab Segrest takes readers along on her travels to view a world experiencing extraordinary change. As she moves from place to place, she speculates on the effects of globalization and urban development on individuals, examines the struggles for racial, economic, and sexual equality, and narrates her own history as a lesbian in the American South. From the principle that we all belong to the human community, Segrest uses her personal experience as a filter for larger political and cultural issues. Her writings bring together such groups as the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina, fledging gay rights activists in Zimbabwe, and resistance fighters in El Salvador. Segrest expertly plumbs her own personal experiences for organizing principles and maxims to combat racism, homophobia, sexism, and economic exploitation.
Author: Michael P. Zuckert Publisher: ISBN: 9780226490670 Category : Religion and politics Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Tocqueville s thesis on the relation between religion and liberty, could hardly be timelier. Every day s newspaper, every college campus, many recent Supreme Court decisions raise the issue in one form or another. From events in the Middle East and the spread of Islamist violence in the name of religion, to the mandated coverage under the Affordable Care Act, the interaction between religion and politics has once again become central to our political life. Tocqueville, facing the coming of a new social and political order within the lingeringly traditional society that was France, faced this relation between politics and religion with freshness and relevance. He was particularly interested to report to his French compatriots on how the Americans had, in his opinion, successfully resolved what, to many Frenchmen, looked to be an insuperable conflict. He thought otherwise, and believed that the Americans had shown why not. His surprising thesis was that the right kind of arrangement of the relationa certain kind of separation of church and state that was not also at the same time a complete separation of religion and politicswas shown in 19th century America to be beneficial to both liberty and religion. Our volume investigates whether Tocqueville s depiction was valid for the America he investigated in the 1830 s, was theoretically plausible, and remains valid (if it ever was) in the 21st century."
Author: Dan Edelstein
Author: Dan Edelstein
Author: Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu
Author: Charles de Secondat baron de Montesquieu
Author: United States Commission on Civil Rights
Author: Sarah Barringer Gordon
Author: Mab Segrest
Author: Bruce W. Dearstyne
Author: Michael P. Zuckert
Author: Amitai Etzioni