Volume 48, Number 7 · April 26, 2001
Mrs. Roosevelt's Revolution
By Brian Urquhart
A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declarationof Human Rights
Mary Ann Glendon
Random House, 333 pp., $25.95
The horrors of the Second World War inspired two major declarations of faith—the United Nations Charter (1945) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Both emerged in the brief, politically temperate interlude between the last months of battle and the beginning of the cold war. As with most declarations of faith, their adherents—first and foremost, governments—have frequently failed to live up to them, but practically all governments say they accept the basic code of conduct these declarations expound. Governments and people, especially in peaceful times, may grow disillusioned with the United Nations; horrendous atrocities may sometimes make a mockery of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; but these two documents set standards for a tolerable society on this planet. The continuing effort to achieve and maintain those standards is the frontier between civilization and barbarism.
Review, 3928 words
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