From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy

Nicol Hall 222, Beirut campus, & Block A 710-711, Byblos campus

The Department of Social Sciences is hosting a book talk and discussion with Professor Sarah B. Snyder, American University in Washington, DC, on her recently published book: “From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018)”.

Dr. Jeffrey G. Karam, LAU, will moderate the event.

Abstract of the Book and Talk:

The 1960s marked a transformation of human rights activism in the United States which fundamentally altered U.S. foreign policy in a way that has been overlooked by previous accounts. Snyder will show how transnational connections and social movements spurred American activism that achieved legislation which curbed military and economic assistance to repressive governments, created institutions to monitor human rights around the world, and enshrined human rights in U.S. foreign policymaking for years to come. She will also analyze how Americans responded to repression in the Soviet Union, racial discrimination in Southern Rhodesia, authoritarianism in SouthKorea, and coups in Greece and Chile. By highlighting the importance of non-state and lower level actors, Snyder shows how this activism established the networks and tactics critical to the institutionalization of human rights and highlights timely lessons for promoting a policy agenda that is resisted by the White House.

About the Author:

Sarah B. Snyder is a historian of U.S. foreign relations who specializes in the history of the Cold War, human rights activism, and U.S. human rights policy. In this talk she will discuss her newest book, From Selma to Moscow: How Human Rights Activists Transformed U.S. Foreign Policy, which traces the influence of human rights activists and advances a new interpretation of U.S. foreign policy in the “long 1960s.”