Two Cultures of Rights: The Quest for Inclusion and Participation in Modern America and Germany

by Manfred Berg, Martin H. Geyer

Overview

This book addresses key issues in the historical struggle for civil rights, political rights, and social rights in the United States and Germany from the late nineteenth century to the present. The essays address issues such as the struggle for the rights of women and minorities (including African Americans, Jews, and Asians), National Socialism and the dismantling of civil rights, and the emergence of the concept of social rights. What becomes clear are the unique features that distinguish German from American history and that these differences have been created by both social movements and dissimilar cultures of rights.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521792660
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	03/11/2002
Series:	Publications of the German Historical Institute
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.83(d)
Lexile:	1670L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

List of contributors; Introduction Manfred Berg and Martin H. Geyer; Part I. Race, Immigration and Rights: 1. Asian Americans: rights denied and attained Roger Daniels; 2. Individual right and collective interests: the NAACP and the American voting rights discourse Manfred Berg; 3. Securing rights by action, securing rights by default: American Jews in historical perspective Hasia R. Diner; 4. From civil rights to civic death dismantling rights in Nazi Germany Karl A. Schleunes; 5. The rights of aliens in Germany and the United States Christian Joppke; Part II. Civil and Social Rights: 6. 'The right to work is the right to live!': fair employment and the quest for social citizenship Eileen Boris; 7. Social rights and citizenship during World War II Martin H. Geyer; 8. Just desserts: virtue, agency and property in mid-twentieth-century Germany Michael L. Hughes; 9. The political culture of rights: postwar Germany and the United States in comparative perspective Hugh Davis Graham; 10. The emerging right to information Margaret S. Dalton; Part III. Gender, Sex and Rights: 11. Feminist movements in the United States and Germany: a comparative perspective, 1848–1933 Ann Taylor Allen; 12. Minorities, civil rights and political culture: gay and lesbian rights in Germany and the United States Michael Dreyer; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...an illuminating and clearly-written collection of essays...This volume should interest scholars across a number of fields, including legal history, political science, and sociology."
- Journal of American Ethnic History

"This collection focuses on selected issues of civil rights in the US and Germany... The individual chapters are thoughtful and well documented. Recommended for graduate, research, and faculty collections."
- Choice

"...the editors and contributors have brought together concerns and empirical findings not ordinarily found in one volume... their consideration of rights and "rights talk" in two different legal and political cultures is an important undertaking..."
- H-German, David Abraham, School of Law, University of Miami

From the Publisher