A world made new : Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights / Mary Ann Glendon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Glendon, Mary Ann, 1938-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United Nations. General Assembly. Universal Declaration of Human Rights--History.

United Nations.

Roosevelt, Eleanor, 1884-1962.

Roosevelt, Eleanor.

United Nations. General Assembly.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations. General Assembly).

Physical Description:

xxi, 333 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Random House, [2001]

Summary:

This is the story of Eleanor Roosevelt's proudest achievement, one that both she and generations of historians came to see as her greatest contribution to world history. It marks a crucial turning point in her life, just after the death of FDR, when she had to decide who she would be and what she would do now that she was no longer her husband's wife and the First Lady. It was at this time that the Eleanor Roosevelt who has been enshrined in our memories as one of the greatest women in American history was born.

The story begins at the height of the Second World War, when FDR and Churchill met on a ship in the mid-Atlantic to cement their resolve to combat the barbarism of Nazi Germany. Out of that meeting emerged the Atlantic Charter, grounded in Roosevelt's famous four freedoms: The war, he said, was a fight for civilization, a battle to defend mankind's freedom of speech and of expression, freedom to worship God in one's own way, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

One of FDR's most cherished dreams as the war drew to a close was that all of the nations dragged into this conflagration would come together to form an international organization whose purpose would be to ensure that such a war would never happen again. Ravaged by illness and strain, the president would not live to see the birth of his dream. He died a few months before the opening of the United Nations in London, and, to the great chagrin of the American delegation, Eleanor Roosevelt went in his place. She performed so well that she was asked to head one of the UN's most sensitive commissions. Her assignment was to hammer out the world's first international bill of rights, a document that would enshrine Roosevelt's four freedoms and define the rights that every man and woman in every country around the world should enjoy. That document, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, was the founding document of the modern rights movement. It transformed the language and texture of international relations, gave legitimacy to anti-colonial movements, inspired a new form of activism, and helped bring down totalitarian regimes. It is the primary inspiration for most rights instruments in the world today.

This is the dramatic and inspiring story of that extraordinary achievement, of the remarkable group of men and women from around the world who participated in it and knew, like the framers of the Declaration of Independence, that they were making history. They worked against the clock in the brief window between the end of the Second World War and the deep freeze of the Cold War. As they struggled to achieve their task, Berlin was blockaded by Soviet troops, Israel declared itself a state and war broke out in the Middle East, China's government was overtaken by Mao's Communist insurgency, and India gained independence.

Mary Ann Glendon is the perfect person to tell this story. An award-winning author and prominent figure in the world of human rights, she led the Vatican delegation to the Beijing Women's Conference. She is a distinguished professor of law at Harvard and has a gift for bringing history to life with passion and immediacy. In addition, she was given exclusive access to unpublished personal diaries and letters of key participants in the creation of the Declaration. A landmark work of narrative history, A World Made New is the first book devoted to this crucial moment in Eleanor Roosevelt's life and in world history.

Contents:

Chapter 1 The Longing for Freedom 3

Chapter 2 Madam Chairman 21

Chapter 3 A Rocky Start 35

Chapter 4 Every Conceivable Right 53

Chapter 5 A Philosophical Investigation 73

Chapter 6 Late Nights in Geneva 79

Chapter 7 In the Eye of the Hurricane 99

Chapter 8 Autumn in Paris 123

Chapter 9 The Nations Have Their Say 143

Chapter 10 The Declaration of Interdependence 173

Chapter 11 The Deep Freeze 193

Chapter 12 Universality Under Siege 221

Epilogue: The Declaration Today 235

1. The Secretariat's June 1947 Draft (Humphrey Draft) 271

2. The June 1947 Draft Revised by Cassin (Cassin Draft) 275

3. The June 1947 Draft Revised by the Full Commission 281

4. The Commission's December 1947 Draft (Geneva Draft) 289

5. The Commission's June 1948 Draft (Lake Success Draft) 294

6. The December 1948 Third Committee Draft 300

7. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948 310.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [243]-270) and index.

ISBN:

0679463100

OCLC:

44841516