Acknowledgments Introduction: "We hold these truths to be self-evident" "Torrents of Emotion": Reading Novels and Imagining Equality "Bone of Their Bone": Abolishing Torture "They Have Set a Great Example": Declaring Rights "There Will be no End of It": The Consequences of Declaring "The Soft Power of Humanity": Why Human Rights Failed, Only to Succeed in the Long Run Three Declarations: 1776, 1789, 1948 Notes Permissions Index