A World Divided: The Global Struggle for Human Rights in the Age of Nation-States, Paperback

A global history of human rights in a world of nations that grant rights to some while denying them to others

Once dominated by vast empires, the world is now divided into some 200 independent countries that proclaim human rights--a transformation that suggests that nations and human rights inevitably develop 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 from virtually every continent, A World Divided describes how, since the eighteenth century, nationalists have established states that grant human rights to some people while excluding others, setting the stage for many of today's problems, from the refugee crisis to right-wing nationalism. Only the advance of international human rights will move us beyond a world divided between those who have rights and those who don't.

About author(s):Eric D. Weitz (1953-2021) was Distinguished Professor of History at City College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He was also the author of Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy, which was named a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice; A Century of Genocide: Utopias of Race and Nation; and Creating German Communism, 1890-1990: From Popular Protests to Socialist State (all Princeton).