1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910455080203321

Autore

Primus Richard A.

Titolo

The American language of rights / / Richard A. Primus [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 1999

ISBN

1-107-11747-X

1-280-42068-5

0-511-17203-6

0-511-14988-3

0-511-32456-1

0-511-49069-0

0-511-04826-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiv, 262 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Ideas in context ; ; 54

Disciplina

342.7308501

Soggetti

Civil rights - United States - Philosophy

Human rights - Language

Critical legal studies - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 248-259) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction / Rights theory and rights practice / History and the development of rights / Rights of the Founding / Rights and Reconstruction: syntheses and shell games / Rights after World War II / Rights and reasons.

Sommario/riassunto

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 sees rights language as grounded more in opposition to concrete social and political practices, than in the universalistic paradigms presented by many political philosophers. This study demonstrates the potency of the language of rights throughout American history, and looks for the first time at the impact of modern totalitarianism (in Nazi Germany and the Soviet



Union) on American conceptions of rights. The American Language of Rights is a major contribution to contemporary political theory, of interest to scholars and students in politics and government, constitutional law, and American history.