On the Spirit of Rights

Dan Edelstein is the William H. Bonsall Professor of French and professor of history (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He is the author of The Terror of Natural Right: Republicanism, the Cult of Nature, and the French Revolution and The Enlightenment: A Genealogy, both published by the University of Chicago Press.

"A superb, erudite piece of intellectual excavation. . . . Edelstein’s skill as an intellectual historian lies especially in his ability to situate ideas in their broadest cultural and political setting."

• I           How to Think about Rights in Early Modern Europe1. Introduction2. Tectonic Shifts and Tectonic Plates: Two Models for the Transformation of Culture3. A Revolution in Natural Law? From Objective to Subjective Right (and Back Again)4. Rights and Sovereignty: Beyond the State5. Inalienability vs. the Alienation of Rights6. Roman Law, the Lex Regia, and the Genealogy of Rights Regimes7. Writing Intellectual History in a Digital AgePart I: Early Modern Rights RegimesII         When Did Rights Become “Rights”? From the Wars of Religion to the Dawn of Enlightenment1. Monarchomachs and Tyrannicides: Natural Rights in the French Wars of Religion2. English Liberties and Natural Rights: Leveller Arguments in the English Civil War3. Abridging Natural Rights: Hobbes and the High Church Divines4. Entrust, but Verify? The Transfer Regime from Spinoza to Locke5. Into the Enlightenment: “Cato” and HutchesonIII        From Liberalism to Liberty: Natural Rights in the French Enlightenment1. Sources for Natural Law Theory in France, 1700–17502. Physiocracy and the Dangerous Ignorance of Natural Rights3. Natural Rights Talk in the Late Enlightenment: The Philosophes Carry the Torch4. The (Meek) Conservative Reaction5. Resisting Despotism: National Rights and ConstitutionalismPart II: Social Naturalism in Early Modern FranceIV        The Laws of Nature in Neo-Stoicism and Science1. The Many Receptions of Stoicism2. Laws of the Natural World: The New ScienceV         Roman Law and Order: From Free-Market Ideology to Abolitionism1. The Jansenist Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Jean Domat, the Natural Order, and the Origins of Free-Market Ideology2. “All Men Are Originally Born Free”: Slavery, Empathy, and the Extension of Human Rights3. ConclusionPart III: Rights and RevolutionsVI        Natural Constitutionalism and American Rights1. Boston, Locke, and Natural Rights (1715–64)2. Blackstone and English Common Law3. Natural Rights and Revolution4. Declaring Rights: From Natural Law Back to English Common LawVII      From Nature to Nation: French Revolutionary Rights1. Whose Rights Are They, Anyway? Rights Talk in the Cahiers de Doléances2. Debating Rights at the National Assembly3. The Legal Spirit of the French Declaration of Rights4. The Revenge of National Rights5. ConclusionVIII     Conclusion: A Stand-in for the Universal Declaration: 1789–19481. The Catholic Church, Natural Law, and Human Rights2. From National Constitutions to an International Declaration3. The Archaeology of the Universal Declaration on Human RightsAcknowledgmentsNotesSelected BibliographyIndex