The idea of human rights began as a call for individual freedom from tyranny, yet today it is exploited to rationalize oppression and promote collectivism. How did this happen? Aaron Rhodes, recognized as “one of the leading human rights activists in the world” by the University of Chicago, reveals how an emancipatory ideal became so debased. Rhodes identifies the fundamental flaw in the Universal Declaration of Human of Rights, the basis for many international treaties and institutions. It mixes freedom rights rooted in natural law—authentic human rights—with “economic and social rights,” or claims to material support from governments, which are intrinsically political. As a result, the idea of human rights has lost its essential meaning and moral power. The principles of natural rights, first articulated in antiquity, were compromised in a process of accommodation with the Soviet Union after World War II, and under the influence of progressivism in Western democracies. Geopolitical and ideological forces ripped the concept of human rights from its foundations, opening it up to abuse. Dissidents behind the Iron Curtain saw clearly the difference between freedom rights and state-granted entitlements, but the collapse of the USSR allowed demands for an expanding array of economic and social rights to gain legitimacy without the totalitarian stigma. The international community and civil society groups now see human rights as being defined by legislation, not by transcendent principles. Freedoms are traded off for the promise of economic benefits, and the notion of collective rights is used to justify restrictions on basic liberties. We all have a stake in human rights, and few serious observers would deny that the concept has lost clarity. But no one before has provided such a comprehensive analysis of the problem as Rhodes does here, joining philosophy and history with insights from his own extensive work in the field.

When we think of human rights we assume that they are meant to protect people from serious social, legal, and political abuses and to advance global justice. In Human Rights and the Care of the Self Alexandre Lefebvre turns this assumption on its head, showing how the value of human rights also lies in enabling ethical practices of self-transformation. Drawing on Foucault's notion of "care of the self," Lefebvre turns to some of the most celebrated authors and activists in the history of human rights–such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Henri Bergson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Charles Malik–to discover a vision of human rights as a tool for individuals to work on, improve, and transform themselves for their own sake. This new perspective allows us to appreciate a crucial dimension of human rights, one that can help us to care for ourselves in light of pressing social and psychological problems, such as loneliness, fear, hatred, patriarchy, meaninglessness, boredom, and indignity.

The Rights of Peoples

Homosexuality and the European Court of Human Rights is the first book-length study of the Court’s jurisprudence in respect of sexual orientation. It offers a socio-legal analysis of the substantial number of decisions and judgments of the Strasbourg organs on the wide range of complaints brought by gay men and lesbians under the European Convention on Human Rights. Providing a systematic analysis of Strasbourg case law since 1955 and examining decades of decisions that have hitherto remained obscure, the book considers the evolution of the Court’s interpretation of the Convention and how this has fashioned lesbian and gay rights in Europe. Going beyond doctrinal analysis by employing a nuanced sociological consideration of Strasbourg jurisprudence, Paul Johnson shows how the Court is a site at which homosexuality is both socially constructed and regulated. He argues that although the Convention is conceived as a ‘living instrument’ to be interpreted ‘in the light of present-day conditions’ the Court’s judgments have frequently forged and advanced new social conditions in respect of homosexuality. Johnson argues that the Court’s jurisprudence has an extra-legal importance because it provides an authoritative and powerful discursive resource that can be mobilized by lesbians and gay men to challenge homophobic and heteronormative social relations in contemporary societies. As such, the book considers how the Court’s interpretation of the Convention might be evolved in the future to better protect lesbian and gay rights and lives.

This early work by Sigmund Freud was originally published in 1912 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love' is an essay on the causes of psychological impotence. Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born on 6th May 1856, in the Moravian town of Příbor, now part of the Czech Republic. He studied a variety of subjects, including philosophy, physiology, and zoology, graduating with an MD in 1881. Freud made a huge and lasting contribution to the field of psychology with many of his methods still being used in modern psychoanalysis. He inspired much discussion on the wealth of theories he produced and the reactions to his works began a century of great psychological investigation.

Detroit was to be a workers' paradise, a symbol of Progressive success. Instead, it has become a symbol of Big Government failure, corruption, violence and decay. In 2013, after a great withdrawal of more than a million productive residents, once-great 'Debtroit' became the largest American city ever to declare bankruptcy.The Great Withdrawal explores why Detroit failed, why other liberal cities may soon follow, and how this could drag America into insolvency and prolonged Depression.It explores the bizarre Nanny Statist Progressive movement that took power in America in 1913 and has driven America on a "100-Year Detour" away from the ideals of our nation's Founders and towards the stagnation of Euro-socialist welfare states.Smith and Ponte, in this their fourth book, look at how Progressivism has used addiction to welfare and easy money, as well as psychological manipulation politics from "crisis-ocracy" and "the herd inside our heads" to the sinister brain science techniques known as "nudge" to win elections, manufacture consent, impose invisible taxes, and control us.Progressives now feel their power slipping away as Americans are withdrawing from a century of hypnotic control. This, argue Smith and Ponte, is why a desperate Left is turning to naked force--"financial repression," rule by decree, "regulution," crony capitalism, seizures and wealth redistribution, and politicized government agencies including the IRS and NSA to keep their hold on government power.These power grabs will fail, predict monetary expert Smith and former think tank futurist Ponte, because Progressives are obsessed with obsolete centralization and expansion of government power. Progressives are doomed, even if they cling to power, to rule a nation that their policies have put into an economic death spiral towards a new Dark Age.The path back to the Framers' prosperous Constitutional Republic, Smith and Ponte write, will decentralize and return Power to the People via the Internet, 3-D printing, decentralized energy, honest money, small government and individual self-reliance. They offer a road map back to the ideals Americans held before the very alien European ideology of collectivist Progressivism steered our nation off course exactly 100 years ago.