The field of human rights history is rapidly expanding, and new research is bringing valuable insights to our understanding of how human rights evolved after 1945, blending perspectives from government policymaking, social movement activism, human rights defenders, and international organizations while giving attention to multiple geographies, new sources, and a variety of local and international processes that influenced global politics and shaped contemporary human rights work.
Joe Renouard has entered this field with his new book, Human Rights in American Foreign Policy: From the 1960s to the Soviet Collapse, covering the second half of the Cold War. His focus is on “the emergence and institutionalization of human rights in American foreign policy between 1967 and 1991” (p. 5). Renouard's interpretation possesses important nuances, but he has chosen to keep his scope somewhat narrow by leaving out, for example, the role of international organizations such as the United Nations (UN)....