Review by Choice Review
In a world of continuing bloodshed and suffering, is it possible to speak seriously of, or to make real, the dream of human dignity expressed in human rights ideals? The problem Lechte and Newman (both, Univ. of London) suggest is with the insistence, articulated best by Arendt, that human and political rights are realizable only in the sovereign state. At the same time, they argue, the biopolitical sovereign power Giorgio Agamben describes complicates rights reception and institutionalization. As Hannah Arendt herself lamented, the events of the last century, particularly the condition of stateless peoples, underscores the critical lack of rights outside the state. Yet, as Agamben shows, the oppression of people inside states also leaves them wanting. Thus, the conflict between sovereignty and human rights can be resolved only by transcending the distinction between mere life without rights outside the polity, and political life in possession of rights by virtue of that location. To approach this transcendence and to save human rights from humanitarianism, the authors turn to Agamben, maintaining he provides a little-appreciated path out of the totality of biopower's grip on law and sovereignty through an aesthetic dimension in language, gesture, and the image. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate, and research collections. A. B. Commissiong West Texas A&M University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
