Description
Book SynopsisSince at least the time of Tocqueville, observers have noted that Americans draw on the language of rights when expressing dissatisfaction with political and social conditions. Drawing on a remarkable cache of Depression-era complaint letters written by ordinary Americans to the Justice Department, the author challenges these common claims.
Trade Review"A masterly and potentially path-breaking analysis of American 'rights talk,' a much-maligned but largely misunderstood phenomenon. Using a trove of letters written in 1939 and 1940 by ordinary Americans to the Justice Department's then-new Civil Liberties Unit, George I. Lovell shows that many of the standard claims about American rights talk are wrong; beyond the fervent hope for a rights-regulated society lies a worldly wise realism about rights' limited capacity to bring about real change." (Charles R. Epp, University of Kansas)"
