Presents a new interpretation of the history of human rights through the biography of a key player in the movement.

Jay Winter is Charles J. Stille Professor of History at Yale University. He has published widely on the history of the First World War, and is one of the founders of the Historial de la grande guerre, the international museum of the Great War in Péronne, France. He is author of Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: The Great War in European Cultural History (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

Introduction to the English edition; Part I. In the Shadow of the Great War: 1. Family and education, 1887-1914; 2. The Great War and its aftermath; 3. Cassin in Geneva; 4. From nightmare to reality: 1936-1940; Part II. The Jurist of Free France: 5. Free France: 1940-41; 6. World war: 1941-43; 7. Restoring the Republican legal order: the 'Comité Juridique'; 8. Freeze frame: René Cassin in 1944; Part III. The Struggle for Human Rights: 9. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: origins and echoes; 10. The vice-president of the Conseil d'Etat, 1944-1960; 11. A Jewish life; Conclusion; An essay on sources.