The Human Rights Dictatorship

By Ned Richardson-Little,

Book cover of The Human Rights Dictatorship: Socialism, Global Solidarity and Revolution in East Germany

Book description

Richardson-Little exposes the forgotten history of human rights in the German Democratic Republic, placing the history of the Cold War, Eastern European dissidents and the revolutions of 1989 in a new light. By demonstrating how even a communist dictatorship could imagine itself to be a champion of human rights, this…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Human Rights Dictatorship as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Ned Richardson-Little explores the mostly forgotten history of the human rights discourse in a Communist dictatorship. Believe it or not, East Germany tried to pose as a promoter of human rights in international and domestic affairs. It spent much effort and many resources on constructing an alternative to Western-dominated human rights debates. Even if Communist Germany disappeared in 1989/90, its warped human rights discourse beforehand had exerted a major influence on dissidents and their increasing opposition to the authoritarian police state in which they were living.

From Lorenz's list on Cold War history published recently.

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