Pro­tect the rights of the minor­i­ty. Speak up for those who can­not speak for them­selves. These are calls we often hear. But from where do they come? 

In her ground – break­ing his­to­ry, Defend­ing the Rights of Oth­ers, Car­ol Fink traces the role of minor­i­ty rights and tries to explain how it devel­oped. It real­ly took shape before and after World War II, when nations were sprout­ing up all over and new bor­ders were being drawn. 

It wasn’t only rights that were being fought over. This was the peri­od when oth­er huge, per­haps even more impor­tant polit­i­cal ideas were aris­ing: Social­ism; Cap­i­tal­ism; Free­dom; Immi­gra­tion; Eman­ci­pa­tion. This was when strong states had to come to an under­stand­ing of how to deal with those who were not like them. Who were they? The minority.