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

The history of civil, political and social rights in the USA and Germany in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Manfred Berg (Edited by), Martin H. Geyer (Edited by)

9780521792660, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 March 2002

296 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.57 kg

'… a fine collection of chapters that remain true to the topic.' Nations and Nationalism

This collection 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. Using a cross-national comparative approach, this book presents national case studies that explore the similarities and differences of conceptualizing rights on both sides of the Atlantic. This book analyses the struggle for these rights by individuals and groups and how this struggle became an essential feature not only in political discourse but also in social and political practice and culture in both Germany and the United States. More specifically, the book examines the different ways rights have been denied due to race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. Considerable attention is given to the impact of Nazism and the struggle for social rights during and after World War II.

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.

Subject Areas: Social issues [Children's / Teenage YXZ], Social & cultural history [HBTB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], History of the Americas [HBJK], European history [HBJD]