Inventing Human Rights

Abstract

Lynn Hunt, UCLA Professor of Modern European History, discusses the genesis of human rights, a concept that only came to the forefront during the eighteenth century. When the American Declaration of Independence declared all men are created equal and the French proclaimed the Declaration of the Rights of Man during their revolution, they were bringing a new guarantee into the world. But why then? How did such a revelation come to pass? Series: "Walter H. Capps Center Series" [3/2008] [Humanities] [Show ID: 14182]