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

Demonstrates how activists worked together during the post-war decades to transform public attitudes towards violations of human rights.

Tom Buchanan (Author)

9781107566552, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 April 2020

356 pages
22.7 x 15.3 x 1.8 cm, 0.58 kg

'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

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.

Introduction
1. Dawn: 1934–50
2. Africa, decolonisation and human rights in the 1950s
3. Political imprisonment and human rights, 1945–64
4. The early years of Amnesty International, 1961–4
5. 'The crisis of growth', Amnesty International 1964–68
6. 1968: the UN Year for Human Rights
7. Torture states: 1967–75
8. 'All things come to those who wait': the later 1970s
Conclusion. The winds of history.

Subject Areas: Human rights [JPVH], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], British & Irish history [HBJD1]