This volume is designed to fill the need for a concise readable account of the development of human rights concepts. The author traces the struggle for human dignity from ancient times through the American and French Revolutions and fight against slavery. Equal consideration is given to twentieth-century totalitarianism and genocide as well as the contemporary struggle for human rights. An effort is made to avoid a purely ethnocentric perspective by including a discussion of the evolution of human rights principles in non western societies. Accompanying the next are many of the documents which form a basis of our modern concept of human rights, from the Analects of Confucius, the Law of Moses and the English Bill of Rights to the Helsinki Accords, the Genocide Convention and the United Nations Charter.