Taking a critical view of a venerated international principle, Randall Williams shows how the concept of human rights--often taken for granted as a force for good in the world--corresponds directly with U.S. imperialist aims. Citing internationalists from W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon to, more recently, M. Jacqui Alexander and China Mieville, Williams insists on a reckoning of human rights with the violence of colonial modernity. Despite the emphasis on international human rights since World War II, Williams notes that the discourse of human rights has consistently reinforced the concerns...
Taking a critical view of a venerated international principle, Randall Williams shows how the concept of human rights--often taken for granted as a fo...