cover image Profiles in Humanity: The Battle for Peace, Freedom, Equality, and Human Rights

Profiles in Humanity: The Battle for Peace, Freedom, Equality, and Human Rights

Warren I. Cohen, . . Rowman & Littlefield, $39.95 (262pp) ISBN 978-0-7425-6701-6

Cohen (America’s Failing Empire ) profiles a diverse group of reformers who risked everything “to improve the human condition” in this concise composite biography. The author identifies five categories of good works—nonviolent resistance, women’s rights, racial equality, human rights and freedom from want—and populates each with representative figures ranging from humanitarian icons (Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Nelson Mandela) to the relatively obscure (Jack Greenberg and Liu Binyan). Given his criteria, there also are surprises: Pope John XXIII and Franklin Roosevelt are included, despite risking comparatively little in their reform efforts. Roosevelt’s inclusion is especially problematic considering that he personally approved the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII and refused to accept most Jews fleeing Hitler. Few of these public heroes were saints in their private lives, and the book does not shy away from their flaws: according to the author, Gandhi was an “abysmal” father; King was a “notorious womanizer and a serial plagiarist”; and Mandela “was a wretched husband.” Despite some provocative selections, this is a balanced and lively collection of brief biographical sketches of 20th-century humanists. (Aug.)