Samuel Moyn

The Cold War roots of liberalism's present crisis A daring new book. —Becca Rothfeld, Washington Post A fascinating and combative intellectual history. —Gideon Rachman, Financial Times By the middle of the twentieth century, many liberals looked glumly at the world modernity had brought about, with its devastating wars, rising totalitarianism, and permanent nuclear terror. They concluded that, far from offering...

The rise of the American Empire has coincided with appeals for a more humane war. But what if efforts to make war more ethical—to ban torture and limit civilian casualties—have only shored up the military enterprise and made it sturdier? During this period, the campaign to abolish wars transformed into opposing war crimes, with fateful consequences. The ramifications of this...

What are the origins of human rights? This question, rarely asked before the end of the Cold War, has in recent years become a major focus of historical and ideological strife. In this sequence of reflective and critical studies, Samuel Moyn engages with some of the leading interpreters of human rights, thinkers who have been creating a field from scratch...

Sixty years ago, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, an exiled Jew deprived of her German citizenship, observed that before people can enjoy any of the “inalienable” Rights of Man—before there can be any specific rights to education, work, voting, and so on—there must first be such a thing as “the right to have rights”. The concept received little attention at...

Hermann Cohen (1842–1918) was among the most accomplished Jewish philosophers of modern times—if not the single most significant. However, his work has not yet received the attention it deserves. This newly translated collection of his writings—most of which are appearing in English for the first time—illuminates his achievements for student readers and rectifies lapses in his intellectual reception by prior...

“Samuel Moyn breaks new ground in examining the relationship between human rights and economic fairness. If we don't address the growing global phenomenon of economic inequality, the human rights movement as we know it cannot survive or flourish.” – George Soros The age of human rights has been kindest to the rich. Even as state violations of political rights garnered...

Human rights offer a vision of international justice that today's idealistic millions hold dear. Yet the very concept on which the movement is based became familiar only a few decades ago when it profoundly reshaped our hopes for an improved humanity. In this pioneering book, Samuel Moyn elevates that extraordinary transformation to centre stage and asks what it reveals about...

The Cold War roots of liberalism’s present crisis By the middle of the twentieth century, many liberals looked glumly at the world modernity had brought about, with its devastating wars, rising totalitarianism, and permanent nuclear terror. They concluded that, far from offering a solution to these problems, the ideals of the Enlightenment, including emancipation and equality, had instead created them....