Dr. Micheline Ishay

In 1989, even as the West was burying communism and declaring liberal internationalism as the new anthem of the globalized age, nationalism reemerged with a vengeance. Was the liberal order proclaimed after the cold war in some sense responsible for this new wave of nationalism? Could one link the nationalist eruptions in Eastern Europe , the Middle East and elsewhere to the recurrent yet unresolved contradictions of liberal internationalism developed during the Enlightenment?

Internationalism and its Betrayal (1995)) was the first scholarly effort to explore the origins of the historical conflicts between internationalism and nationalism, taking the reader through a history of social upheavals and the writings of leading visionaries (from Grotius to Hegel) during the Enlightenment. Although internationalism is typically understood to be diametrically opposed to nationalism, in Internationalism and its Betrayal, I argue to the contrary, maintaining that internationalism often incorporates a particularlist element that manifests itself as nationalism during critical periods such as war, or as a result of popular disillusionment over flawed human rights projects.

This conclusion is not idiosyncratic to the Enlightenment. Historically, each major human rights stride forward was followed by severe nationalist setbacks. The universalism of human rights brandished during the French revolution was slowly superseded by a nationalist reaction incubated during Napoleon’s conquests, just as the internationalist hopes of socialist human rights advocates were drowned in a tidal wave of nationalism at the onset of World War I. The human rights aspirations of the Bolshevik revolution and that of two liberal sister institutions, the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization, were crushed by the rise of Stalinism and fascism during the interwar period; the establishment of the UN and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were eclipsed by intensifying nationalism in the emerging Third World and the global competition between two nuclear armed superpowers. Finally, the triumphant claims after 1989 that human rights would blossom in an unfettered global market economy were soon countered by rising nationalism in the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, Africa and beyond.

To grasp more fully the recurrent expressions of nationalism and human rights throughout history requires understanding the ways in which the various trends of nationalism had been captured by various political discourses. The Nationalism Reader, (NJ: Humanities Press, 1995, now with Prometheus Press, 1999) depicts the historical evolution of three hundred years of nationalist thought in the words of leading political actors and thinkers, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Theodore Herzl, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Khomeini, Nehru, Marcus Garvey, Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Habermas and many others. By classifying the questions of nationalism according to conflicting political perspectives, this book’s introductory essay and organization show that liberalism, conservatism, and socialism all oscillate between a universalist (or a semi-universalist) conception of human rights and nationalism. In this respect, the selected texts shed new theoretical light on the study of nationalism, as well as presenting major European, American and Third World contributions to nationalist thought.

The opposite face of Janus now pointed toward the other road that needed to be taken. A comprehensive canon and history of human rights –one that bridges diverse course offerings in that field—did not yet exist, and my first step toward capturing that history took the form of a reader. My Human RightsReader: Major Speeches, Essays and Documents from the Bible to the Present (London/New York: Routledge Press, 1997, a new edition is in progress) traces the historical lineage and discursive tradition of human rights, a tradition that led to the main themes contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

My History of Human Rights, from Ancient Times to the Era of Globalization ( University of California Press, 2004) benefited from each of these three earlier books. In Internationalism and Its Betrayal, I had addressed the modern foundation and contradictions of the historical human rights project. The Human Rights Reader helped me to distill the tradition of rights. The Nationalism Reader sharpened my understanding of the flaws of a succession of human rights projects. Taken together, my previous research helped prepare me to write a comprehensive history of human rights, to clarify widely held misconceptions and to advance my own position in contemporary human rights debates.

The History of Human Rights is a journey guided by lampposts across the ruins wrecked by ravaging and insatiable storms. It recounts the dramatic struggle for human rights across the ages, from the Mesopotamian Codes of Hammurabi to today’s globalization era. Filling a gap in the field of human rights, it explains the long history of actions and ideas that culminated in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and beyond. Its narrative sheds new light on important historical controversies that continue to divide human rights scholarship and activism: What are the origins of Human Rights? Why did the European vision of Human Rights triumph over those of other civilizations? Has socialism made a lasting contribution to the legacy of human rights? Are human rights universal or culturally bound? Must human rights be sacrificed to the demands of national security? Is globalization eroding or advancing human rights? What strategies can best promote the human rights in the new millennium?

September 11 and its aftermath make these questions more salient than ever. It is with the trepidation born of past tragedy that we carry the lantern of hope through the uncertain dawn of this new millennium, it is with the confidence gained from past progress that we aspire to a great measure of justice for all.