Our human rights are under threat. After the devastation of World War II, the international community united to establish basic rights to asylum, health, education, and a standard of living. They upheld privacy, fair trials, and freedom of expression, and outlawed torture, slavery, and discrimination. Their goal was to achieve global justice, equality, and peace. But this compromise is now under attack from opponents on the left and right, and from populist and authoritarian movements around the world. At the same time, we face the threats of war, inequality, new technologies, and climate catastrophe—crises that human rights can help us address. In this urgent and powerful book, Shami Chakraborty demonstrates the importance of human rights and the need to strengthen them to meet the challenges of the present and the future. By surveying historical national and international struggles for human rights, from ancient Babylon to the present day, Chakraborty provides an indispensable guide to the law and reason that underlie human dignity and universal freedoms. This book equips advocates in the battle of ideas and will encourage skeptics to reconsider. Believing in human rights is believing in human beings. If they—and we—are to survive, everyone must possess and understand these rights.