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Podcast: New Books in Human Rights
Episode: Samuel Moyn, “Christian Human Rights” (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)
Description: Samuel Moyn is Professor of Law and History at Harvard University. In Christian Human Rights University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), Moyn provides a historical intervention in our understanding of how the idea of human rights in the mid-twentieth century came to be. He argues that contrary to current thought, that sees it as part of the long-legacy of Christianity, or the triumph of liberal democracy, it has a more complicated history. The notion of human rights was inspired by a defense of the dignity of the human person. It first arose just prior to WW II as part of the...