On the Poverty and Possibility of Human Rights in Latin American History

We have few histories of human rights in Latin America that parse what actors in particular times and places thought about human rights, how they used the language, and the ways in which it was a galvanizing principle for their diplomacy or activism. This review essay turns to two recent works on human rights in Latin American history to encourage further discussion about the relative dearth of scholarship on human rights in Latin America, and to suggest a few future lines of inquiry for scholars of transnationalism and human rights in the region.