A False Tree of Liberty: Human Rights in Radical Thought [Hardcover]

This book is concerned with the history of the idea of human rights. It offers a fresh approach that puts aside familiar questions such as 'Where do human rights come from?' and 'When did human rights begin?', for the sake of looking into connections between debates about the rights of man and developments within the history of capitalism.This book is concerned with the history of the idea of human rights. It offers a fresh approach that puts aside familiar questions such as 'Where do human rights come from?' and 'When did human rights begin?' for the sake of looking into connections between debates about the rights of man and developments within the history of capitalism. The focus is on England, where, at the end of the eighteenth century, a heated controversy over the rights of man coincided with the final enclosure of common lands and the momentous changes associated with early industrialisation. Tracking back still further to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writing about dispossession, resistance and rights, the book reveals a forgotten tradition of thought about central issues in human rights, with profound implications for their prospects in the world today.1. Introduction2. Enclosure and its Critics3. Two Early Modern Revolts4. Rights in the English Revolution5. The French Revolution Controversy6. In the Shadow of Dearth7. Improvement and the Real Rights of Man8. Does Nature Confer Rights?9. Trees and Liberty10. AfterwordSusan Marksis Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics. She previously taught at the University of Cambridge and King's College London. Her research is concerned with international law and human rights. She is the author ofThe Riddle of All ConstitutionsandInternational Human Rights Lexicon(co-written with Andrew Clapham), and editedInternational Law on the Left(CUP).This book is concerned with the history of the idea of human rights.