A Most Uncertain Crusade : The United States, the United Nations, and Human Rights, 1941-1953

Prior to World War II, the protection of individuals fell generally under the jurisdiction of national governments, but the rise of fascism and the gross wartime violations of human rights established human rights as an area of transnational and global concern. A Most Uncertain Crusade traces the emergence of human rights as an international political issue-one especially important to American policymakers after World War II. Focusing on officials in the State Department, at the United Nations, and within nongovernmental organizations, Rowland Brucken explains how American human rights policy developed after the war - from Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's Wilsonian ideals to Eisenhower's eloquent celebrations of freedom and democracy.