Amnesty International and Human Rights Activism in Postwar Britain, 1945-1977

Description

In this definitive new account of the emergence of human rights activism in post-war Britain, Tom Buchanan shows how disparate individuals, organisations and causes gradually came to acquire a common identity as 'human rights activists'. This was a slow process whereby a coalition of activists, working on causes ranging from anti-fascism, anti-apartheid and decolonisation to civil liberties and the peace movement, began to come together under the banner of human rights. The launch of Amnesty International in 1961, and its landmark winning of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 provided a model and inspiration to many new activist movements in 'the field of human rights', and helped to affect major changes towards public and political attitudes towards human rights issues across the globe.

Tom Buchanan is Professor of Modern British and European History at the University of Oxford. He is the author of The Spanish Civil War and the British Labour Movement (1991), Britain and the Spanish Civil War (1997), and The Impact of the Spanish Civil War on Britain: War, Loss and Memory (2007). He has also published Europe's Troubled Peace, 1945 to the present (2006/2012), East Wind: China and the British Left, 1925-1976 (2012) and his most recent publication is a co-edited book on the centenary of the Balkan Wars titled War in the Balkans (2015).

'This is a major intervention in the study of human rights. Buchanan's enthralling history of Amnesty International is superbly researched and written. It explores one of the key organizations involved in developing both the conceptual and practical meaning of human rights - itself one of the defining terms of the post-war period. Transnational in its range across the British empire, Chile, Greece and beyond, it offers refreshing new perspectives on British political culture from the 1940s to 1970s.' Lawrence Black, University of York 'A meticulous account of how human rights sprang into life in post-War Britain. Packed with personalities and progressive societies - especially Amnesty - Tom Buchanan has shown how the shaping of human rights in the decades before the Human Rights Act made that measure possible, and shown as well how human rights must always be about more than law if they are to thrive. A considerable scholarly achievement.' Conor Gearty, London School of Economics and Political Science 'If one organisation is synonymous with human rights, it is Amnesty International. In unprecedented detail, Tom Buchanan shows us Amnesty in its postwar context, skilfully weaving together the various strands of social, political and religious activism that gave birth to it and which led, in time, to the global human rights movement as a whole. A must-read for anyone interested in the history of human rights.' Stephen Hopgood, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 'The conclusion is excellent, dealing with individual agency compared to 'the winds of history,' visionaries compared to effective managers, and law compared to social movements.' D. P. Forsythe, Choice