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December 2017 Vol. 55 No. 4


Oxford University Press


The following review appeared in the December 2017 issue of CHOICE. The review is for your internal use only. Please review our Permission and Reprints Guidelines or email permissions@ala-choice.org.

Social & Behavioral Sciences
Political Science - International Relations

55-1518
JC571
MARC
Fragile freedoms: the global struggle for human rights, ed. by Steven Lecce, Neil McArthur, and Arthur Schafer. Oxford, 2017. 212p index ISBN 9780190227180, $99.00; ISBN 9780190227197 pbk, $29.95; ISBN 9780190227203 ebook, contact publisher for price.

The book includes an eclectic variety of essays first presented at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and screened for the public through the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation between 2013 and 2014. As the editors explain in their introduction, “The series serves to display both the diversity of thinking on the topic and the vitality with which human rights issues are debated and contested.” That is certainly the case. Readers could take issue with Anthony Grayling’s claim that “every one of us lives the life, has the possibilities, and makes the choices that only the most wealthy and powerful aristocrats did 400 years ago." That is difficult to fathom when surveying the experiences of so many people across the globe today, such as the Rohingya, Syrians, and the South Sudanese. Readers may wonder how Steven Pinker can say with certainty that rape and domestic violence have decreased when most cases are not reported. The volume does include some significant essays, such as those by Kwame Anthony Appiah, John Borrows, and Helena Kennedy.

--K. Sorensen, Bentley University

Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.