update: human rights book

I'm currently about a quarter (100 pages) into the book The History of Human Rights. Thus far I believe my initial analysis was correct, that the current rhetoric of Human Rights is something that derived from our social history; that is, our experiences.

Notes on the book:
The book is a great read for anyone who is a novice to the field of Human Rights. The tone of the book is straight forward and the structure is will organized. She gives a good explanation of what to expect from each chapter and each chapter is grouped into sub-topics. More importantly, her language is not esoteric. Though I believe it would help if the reader had a fundamental knowledge of European history, and philosophy—though it is not crucial. Reason being, among others, she believes, rightly so, that the current Human Rights movement is Western in orientation and dominated by Western philosophy.

Thus far, the author has focused on three paradigms to trace the roots of the contemporary Human Rights movement. The first is ancient Western civilizations: Greek and Roman moral and political philosophers and their institutions. She illuminates the contributions to Human Rights movement by great luminaries like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, the Stoics, among others. Second she focuses on the contributions of the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Islam, and Christianity), Hinduism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Third, and one in which I'm in the middle of reading, is the period of the Enlightenment. This period I'm more inclined to be a patron of because the emphasis is on using our abilities as logical beings to explain our social responsibilities to one another as opposed to some revealed knowledge from "above."

More updates are to come.