A World Divided: The Global Struggle for Human Rights in the Age of Nation-States [Audiobook]

A global history of human rights in a world of nation-states that grant rights to some while denying them to others. Once dominated by vast empires, the world is now divided into close to 200 independent countries with laws and constitutions proclaiming human rights - a transformation that suggests that nations and human rights inevitably developed together. But the reality is far more problematic, as Eric Weitz shows in this compelling global history of the fate of human rights in a world of nation-states. Through vivid histories drawn from virtually every continent, A World Divided describes how, since the 18th century, nationalists have struggled to establish their own states that grant human rights to some people. At the same time, they have excluded others through forced assimilation, ethnic cleansing, or even genocide. From Greek rebels, American settlers, and Brazilian abolitionists in the 19th century to anticolonial Africans and Zionists in the 20th, nationalists have confronted a crucial question: Who has the "right to have rights?" A World Divided tells these stories in colorful accounts focusing on people who were at the center of events. And it shows that rights are dynamic.