Human Rights and Memory

Daniel Levy is Associate Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook University.Natan Sznaider is Professor of Sociology in the School of Behavioral Sciences at the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo, Israel.

“In this inspirational text about the impact of human-rights principles and normative cosmopolitanism on both the nation-state and international relations, Levy and Sznaider address the dominant moral problems of our time. Why should I care? Who is my brother? What should I remember? Through a defense of cosmopolitan ethics, they provide convincing answers to the perplexities of rights from Hannah Arendt onwards, namely, the specific rights of citizens versus the universal Rights of Man. Human rights matter because modern states can no longer abuse their own citizens with impunity in the name of national unity. Given the slide toward authoritarianism and state security, the task of defending both cosmopolitanism and human rights has a definite political urgency to which Human Rights and Memory offers a decisive response.”—Bryan S. Turner, Presidential Professor, the City University of New York, the Graduate Center

• ContentsAcknowledgments1. The Ubiquity of Human Rights in a Cosmopolitan Age2. Sociology and Human Rights3. Sovereignty and Human Rights: The Hobbesian Challenge4. International Law and the Formation of Nation-States5. From Minority to Human: The Changing Face of Rights6. The Cold War Period: More Than One Universalism 7. The Post–Cold War Period: Globalization and the Cosmopolitan Turn8. Human Rights and the Clash of Memories: The Politics of Forgiveness9 East Meets West: Europe and Its Others10. A Sociology of Human Rights and Sovereignty After 9/11NotesReferencesIndex