HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY
The Rights of History: Enlightenment
and Human Rights
Vincenzo Ferrone*
ABSTRACT
Lately, the study of human rights has become a dangerous ground for
historians—above all in Europe. In his celebrated Le Sottisier, Gustave
Flaubert ironically defined history as a dangerous knowledge for teachers
and students; yet, he was not fully aware in his time of all the rivalries and
pretentions that scholars from other fields—like anthropology, law, sociology,
political theory—would raise. In fact, those scholars seem to be frightened
when seeing the ranks of the historians approaching a field they consider
their own property. This is certainly the case of human rights.
I.
INTRODUCTION
Lately, the study of human rights has become a dangerous ground for
historians. There are multiple reasons behind this found inside as well as
outside of history. Internal reasons may be identified in the old, and yet
unsolved, opposition between the historians focusing on cultural relativism
and historicism, on the one side, and those focusing on the cosmopolitan
and universalistic dimension of rights, on the other. However, the external
reasons can be deemed more important.
* Vincenzo Ferrone is Professor of Modern History at Department of Historical Studies (Univer-
sity of Turin). His research focus mainly on the history of old regimes and Enlightenment in
Europe and on the history of rights of man. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Collège de
France and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He directs the economic series
of modern history, “Essential Library,” and, since 2008, he is President of the Firpo Founda-
tion for Political Studies in Turin. Among his recent publications are: The Enlightenment:
History of an Idea (Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press, 2015 Updated edition); Storia dei diritti
dell’uomo. L’Illuminismo e la costruzione del linguaggio politico dei moderni (Roma-Bari,
Laterza 2015, 2d ed.).
Human Rights Quarterly 39 (2017) 130–141 © 2017 by Johns Hopkins University Press