Now in a revised and updated edition with added original chapters, this acclaimed book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on the complex links between revolutionary struggles and human rights discourses and practices. Covering events as far removed from one another in time and space as the English Civil War, the Parisian upheavals of 1789, Latin American independence struggles, and protests in late twentieth-century China, the contributors explore the paradoxes of revolutionary and human rights projects.The book convincingly shows the ways in which revolutions have both helped spur new advances in thinking about human rights and produced regimes that commit a range of abuses. Providing an unusually balanced analysis of the changes over time in conceptions of human rights in Western and non-Western contexts, this work offers a unique window into the history of the world during modern times and a fresh context for understanding today's pressing issues.Contributions by: Florence Bernault, Mark Philip Bradley, Sumit Ganguly, Greg Grandin, James N. Green, Lynn Hunt, Yanni Kotsonis, Timothy McDaniel, Kristin Ross, Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom, Alexander Woodside, Marilyn B. Young, David Zaret, and Michael Zuckert

Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom is professor of history at the University of California, Irvine.Greg Grandin is professor of history at New York University.Lynn Hunt is Eugen Weber Professor of French History at the University of California, Los Angeles.Marilyn B. Young is professor of history at New York University.

Introduction: Human Rights and RevolutionsPart I: Two Opening PerspectivesChapter 1: The Paradoxical Origins of Human RightsChapter 2: The Chinese Revolution and Contemporary ParadoxesPart II: The English, American, and Russian RevolutionsChapter 3: Tradition, Human Rights, and the English RevolutionChapter 4: Natural Rights in the American Revolution: The American AmalgamChapter 5: A European Experience: Human Rights and Citizenship in Revolutionary RussiaPart III: Asian and African Case StudiesChapter 6: An Enlightenment of Outcasts: Some Vietnamese StoriesChapter 7: India, Human Rights, and Asian ValuesChapter 8: What Absence Is Made Of: Human Rights in AfricaPart IV: A Human Rights Revolution?Chapter 9: (Homo)sexuality, Human Rights, and Revolution in Latin AmericaChapter 10: Ethics and the Rearmament of Imperialism: The French CaseChapter 11: The Strange Career of Radical IslamPart V: A Concluding PerspectiveChapter 12: Human Rights and Empire's Embrace: A Latin American Counterpoint