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A Most Uncertain Crusade traces and analyzes the emergence of human rights as both an international concern and as a controversial domestic issue for US policy makers during and after World War II. Rowland Brucken focuses on officials in the State Department, at the United Nations, and within certain domestic non-governmental organizations, and explains why, after issuing wartime declarations that called for the definition and enforcement of international human rights standards, the US government refused to ratify the first UN treaties that fulfilled those twin purposes. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations worked to weaken the scope and enforcement mechanisms of early human rights agreements, and gradually withdrew support for Senate ratification. A small but influential group of isolationist–oriented senators, led by John Bricker (R-OH), warned that the treaties would bring about socialism, destroy white supremacy, and eviscerate the Bill of Rights. At the UN, a growing bloc of developing nations demanded the inclusion of economic guarantees, support for decolonization, and strong enforcement measures, all of which Washington opposed. Prior to World War II, international law considered the protection of individual rights to fall largely under the jurisdiction of national governments. Alarmed by fascist tyranny and guided by a Wilsonian vision of global cooperation in pursuit of human rights, President Roosevelt issued the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter. Behind the scenes, the State Department planners carefully considered how an international organization could best protect those guarantees. Their work paid off at the 1945 San Francisco Conference, which vested the UN with an unprecedented opportunity to define and protect the human rights of individuals. After two years of negotiations, the UN General Assembly unanimously approved its first human rights treaty, the Genocide Convention. The UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), led by Eleanor Roosevelt, drafted the nonbinding Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Subsequent efforts to craft an enforceable covenant of individual rights, though, bogged down quickly. A deadlock occurred as western nations, communist states, and developing countries disagreed on the inclusion of economic and social guarantees, the right of self-determination, and plans for implementation. Meanwhile, a coalition of groups within the United States doubted the wisdom of American accession to any human rights treaties. Led by the American Bar Association and Senator Bricker, opponents proclaimed that ratification would lead to a U.N. led tyrannical world socialistic government. The backlash caused President Eisenhower to withdraw from the covenant drafting process. Brucken shows how the American human rights policy had come full circle: Eisenhower, like Roosevelt, issued statements that merely celebrated western values of freedom and democracy, criticized human rights records of other countries while at the same time postponed efforts to have the UN codify and enforce a list of binding rights due in part to America's own human rights violations.
A Most Uncertain Crusade traces and analyzes the emergence of human rights as both an international concern and as a controversial domestic issue for US policy makers during and after World War II. Rowland Brucken focuses on officials in the State Department, at the United Nations, and within certain domestic non-governmental organizations, and explains why, after issuing wartime declarations that called for the definition and enforcement of international human rights standards, the US government refused to ratify the first UN treaties that fulfilled those twin purposes. The Truman and Eisenhower administrations worked to weaken the scope and enforcement mechanisms of early human rights agreements, and gradually withdrew support for Senate ratification. A small but influential group of isolationist–oriented senators, led by John Bricker (R-OH), warned that the treaties would bring about socialism, destroy white supremacy, and eviscerate the Bill of Rights. At the UN, a growing bloc of developing nations demanded the inclusion of economic guarantees, support for decolonization, and strong enforcement measures, all of which Washington opposed. Prior to World War II, international law considered the protection of individual rights to fall largely under the jurisdiction of national governments. Alarmed by fascist tyranny and guided by a Wilsonian vision of global cooperation in pursuit of human rights, President Roosevelt issued the Four Freedoms and the Atlantic Charter. Behind the scenes, the State Department planners carefully considered how an international organization could best protect those guarantees. Their work paid off at the 1945 San Francisco Conference, which vested the UN with an unprecedented opportunity to define and protect the human rights of individuals. After two years of negotiations, the UN General Assembly unanimously approved its first human rights treaty, the Genocide Convention. The UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), led by Eleanor Roosevelt, drafted the nonbinding Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Subsequent efforts to craft an enforceable covenant of individual rights, though, bogged down quickly. A deadlock occurred as western nations, communist states, and developing countries disagreed on the inclusion of economic and social guarantees, the right of self-determination, and plans for implementation. Meanwhile, a coalition of groups within the United States doubted the wisdom of American accession to any human rights treaties. Led by the American Bar Association and Senator Bricker, opponents proclaimed that ratification would lead to a U.N. led tyrannical world socialistic government. The backlash caused President Eisenhower to withdraw from the covenant drafting process. Brucken shows how the American human rights policy had come full circle: Eisenhower, like Roosevelt, issued statements that merely celebrated western values of freedom and democracy, criticized human rights records of other countries while at the same time postponed efforts to have the UN codify and enforce a list of binding rights due in part to America's own human rights violations.
The international doctrine of human rights is one of the most ambitious parts of the settlement of World War II. Since then, the language of human rights has become the common language of social criticism in global political life. This book is a theoretical examination of the central idea of that language, the idea of a human right. In contrast to more conventional philosophical studies, the author takes a practical approach, looking at the history and political practice of human rights for guidance in understanding the central idea. The author presents a model of human rights as matters of international concern, whose violation by governments can justify international protective and restorative action ranging from intervention to assistance. He proposes a schema for justifying human rights and applies it to several controversial cases-rights against poverty, rights to democracy, and the human rights of women. Throughout, the book attends to some main reasons why people are sceptical about human rights, including the fear that human rights will be used by strong powers to advance their national interests. The book concludes by observing that contemporary human rights practice is vulnerable to several pathologies and argues the need for international collaboration to avoid them.
The story of the wars and conquests initiated by the First Crusade and its successors is itself so compelling that most accounts move quickly from describing the Pope's calls to arms to the battlefield. In this highly original and enjoyable new book, Christopher Tyerman focuses on something obvious but overlooked: the massive, all-encompassing, and hugely costly business of actually preparing a crusade. The efforts of many thousands of men and women, who left their lands and families in Western Europe, and marched off to a highly uncertain future in the Holy Land and elsewhere have never been sufficiently understood. Their actions raise a host of compelling questions about the nature of medieval society.How to Plan a Crusade is remarkably illuminating on the diplomacy, communications, propaganda, use of mass media, medical care, equipment, voyages, money, weapons, wills, ransoms, animals, and the power of prayer during this dynamic era. It brings to life an extraordinary period of history in a new and surprising way.
Through careful archival research, Glenn Mitoma reveals how the U.S. government, key civil society groups, Cold War politics, and specific individuals led to America's emergence in the twentieth century as an ambivalent yet central player in establishing an international rights ethic.
James examines at a broad level the concept of universalistic and "dignitarian" human rights, as expressed in such covenants as the International Bill of Rights, two United Nations documents published in 1966 that delineate civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights for all human beings. He gives an interdisciplinary account of the historical, legal, political, theoretical and philosophical development of ideas about human rights from the beginnings of our understanding of them up to 1939, describes the horrors of World War II and the resulting goal of the then-developing UN to create a universal declaration of human rights, and examines the often clashing concepts and motivations behind the creation of the 1966 covenants.
Covers the entire range of the history of U.S. foreign relations from the colonial period to the beginning of the 21st century. A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations is an authoritative guide to past and present scholarship on the history of American diplomacy and foreign relations from its seventeenth century origins to the modern day. This two-volume reference work presents a collection of historiographical essays by prominent scholars. The essays explore three centuries of America’s global interactions and the ways U.S. foreign policies have been analyzed and interpreted over time. Scholars offer fresh perspectives on the history of U.S. foreign relations; analyze the causes, influences, and consequences of major foreign policy decisions; and address contemporary debates surrounding the practice of American power. The Companion covers a wide variety of methodologies, integrating political, military, economic, social and cultural history to explore the ideas and events that shaped U.S. diplomacy and foreign relations and continue to influence national identity. The essays discuss topics such as the links between U.S. foreign relations and the study of ideology, race, gender, and religion; Native American history, expansion, and imperialism; industrialization and modernization; domestic and international politics; and the United States’ role in decolonization, globalization, and the Cold War. A comprehensive approach to understanding the history, influences, and drivers of U.S. foreign relation, this indispensable resource: Examines significant foreign policy events and their subsequent interpretations Places key figures and policies in their historical, national, and international contexts Provides background on recent and current debates in U.S. foreign policy Explores the historiography and primary sources for each topic Covers the development of diverse themes and methodologies in histories of U.S. foreign policy Offering scholars, teachers, and students unmatched chronological breadth and analytical depth, A Companion to U.S. Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present is an important contribution to scholarship on the history of America’s interactions with the world.
As ISIS tore through the regions of Syria and Iraq, they brought with them a caustic and terrible ideology, one obsessed with appropriating history to their own benefit. The Crusades, a nearly two-hundred-year period encompassing one of the most romanticized epochs in history, stands out in ISIS philosophy as a subject of bitter contention and inspiration. Throughout their propaganda, ISIS employs their Crusader mythos, a self-contained worldview based on their belief that the Crusades never actually ended and, indeed, that ISIS is today waging a war of survival and ultimate victory against the final crusade. This idea of a continuous Crusade of East versus West represents for ISIS a war that spans most of history, nearly a thousand years of true Muslim civilization fighting against all others. To this effect, ISIS labels its Western opponents modern-day Crusaders and its nearer Middle Eastern enemies Crusader lackeys, including even Al-Qaeda. Present in all forms of ISIS media, from digitally crafted, gruesome execution videos to prohibitions of Apple products, this belief of waging unending war against the Crusaders and their followers frames ISISs entire existence as they march, retreat, and fight against what they believe is the war of the end times. Throughout this book, the academic concepts of propaganda will be discussed, the most poignant stories of the Crusades told, and the long and bloody evolution and utilization of the Crusades in modern propaganda will be analyzed and brought to light.
The Oxford Handbook of the Cold War offers a broad reassessment of the period war based on new conceptual frameworks developed in the field of international history. Nearing the 25th anniversary of its end, the cold war now emerges as a distinct period in twentieth-century history, yet one which should be evaluated within the broader context of global political, economic, social, and cultural developments. The editors have brought together leading scholars in cold war history to offer a new assessment of the state of the field and identify fundamental questions for future research. The individual chapters in this volume evaluate both the extent and the limits of the cold war's reach in world history. They call into question orthodox ways of ordering the chronology of the cold war and also present new insights into the global dimension of the conflict. Even though each essay offers a unique perspective, together they show the interconnectedness between cold war and national and transnational developments, including long-standing conflicts that preceded the cold war and persisted after its end, or global transformations in areas such as human rights or economic and cultural globalization. Because of its broad mandate, the volume is structured not along conventional chronological lines, but thematically, offering essays on conceptual frameworks, regional perspectives, cold war instruments and cold war challenges. The result is a rich and diverse accounting of the ways in which the cold war should be positioned within the broader context of world history.
The second edition of Historical Dictionary of Human Rights explores both the theory and the practice of international human rights with a focus on the norms and institutions that make up the “architecture” of the global human rights regime and the tools, processes and procedures through which such norms are realized and “enforced.” Particular attention is given to the contextual political and sociological factors that shape and constrain the operation and functioning of international human rights institutions and their state and non-state actors. This is done through a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1.000 cross-referenced entries on terminology, conventions, treaties, intergovernmental organizations in the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations, as well as some of the pioneers and defenders. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about human rights.