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Reclaiming American Virtue : The Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s / Barbara J. Keys.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, [2014]Copyright date: ©2014Edition: Pilot project. eBook available to selected US libraries onlyDescription: 1 online resource (368 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780674724853
  • 9780674726031
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 323.0973/09047 23
LOC classification:
  • JC599.U5 K49 2014eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: Enter Human Rights -- 1. The Postwar Marginality of Universal Human Rights -- 2. Managing Civil Rights at Home -- 3. The Trauma of the Vietnam War -- 4. The Liberal Critique of Right-Wing Dictatorships -- 5. The Anticommunist Embrace of Human Rights -- 6. A New Calculus Emerges -- 7. Insurgency on Capitol Hill -- 8. The Human Rights Lobby -- 9. A Moralist Campaigns for President -- 10. “We Want to Be Proud Again” -- Conclusion: Universal Human Rights in American Foreign Policy -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliographical Essay -- Acknowledgments -- Index
Summary: The American commitment to promoting human rights abroad emerged in the 1970s as a surprising response to national trauma. In this provocative history, Barbara Keys situates this novel enthusiasm as a reaction to the profound challenge of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Instead of looking inward for renewal, Americans on the right and the left looked outward for ways to restore America's moral leadership. Conservatives took up the language of Soviet dissidents to resuscitate the Cold War, while liberals sought to dissociate from brutally repressive allies like Chile and South Korea. When Jimmy Carter in 1977 made human rights a central tenet of American foreign policy, his administration struggled to reconcile these conflicting visions. Yet liberals and conservatives both saw human rights as a way of moving from guilt to pride. Less a critique of American power than a rehabilitation of it, human rights functioned for Americans as a sleight of hand that occluded from view much of America's recent past and confined the lessons of Vietnam to narrow parameters. From world's judge to world's policeman was a small step, and American intervention in the name of human rights would be a cause both liberals and conservatives could embrace.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9780674726031

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: Enter Human Rights -- 1. The Postwar Marginality of Universal Human Rights -- 2. Managing Civil Rights at Home -- 3. The Trauma of the Vietnam War -- 4. The Liberal Critique of Right-Wing Dictatorships -- 5. The Anticommunist Embrace of Human Rights -- 6. A New Calculus Emerges -- 7. Insurgency on Capitol Hill -- 8. The Human Rights Lobby -- 9. A Moralist Campaigns for President -- 10. “We Want to Be Proud Again” -- Conclusion: Universal Human Rights in American Foreign Policy -- Abbreviations -- Notes -- Bibliographical Essay -- Acknowledgments -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The American commitment to promoting human rights abroad emerged in the 1970s as a surprising response to national trauma. In this provocative history, Barbara Keys situates this novel enthusiasm as a reaction to the profound challenge of the Vietnam War and its aftermath. Instead of looking inward for renewal, Americans on the right and the left looked outward for ways to restore America's moral leadership. Conservatives took up the language of Soviet dissidents to resuscitate the Cold War, while liberals sought to dissociate from brutally repressive allies like Chile and South Korea. When Jimmy Carter in 1977 made human rights a central tenet of American foreign policy, his administration struggled to reconcile these conflicting visions. Yet liberals and conservatives both saw human rights as a way of moving from guilt to pride. Less a critique of American power than a rehabilitation of it, human rights functioned for Americans as a sleight of hand that occluded from view much of America's recent past and confined the lessons of Vietnam to narrow parameters. From world's judge to world's policeman was a small step, and American intervention in the name of human rights would be a cause both liberals and conservatives could embrace.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 08. Aug 2023)