Writing Rights into the “New” Political History

Abstract

The “new political history” can be enhanced and expanded with a focus on human rights. While the “old political history” was often politics abstracted from other elements of the historical experience, as Steven Pincus and William Novak describe, the “new political history” emphasizes structures of power and the use of a broader range of sources. A focus on human rights has the potential to alter how we understand Canadian history. In particular, the study of human rights broadens whom we consider “political actors” and enriches and develops our understanding of the expansion of politics through law, the history of liberalism and its relationship to Canada’s rights revolution, and the influence of human rights principles on foreign policy.