Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1. Human Rights as a Metaphor 10 -- The Metaphor of Human Rights 10 -- The Grand Narrative of Human Rights 15 -- The Metaphor of the Savage 22 -- The Metaphor of the Victim 27 - - The Metaphor of the Savior 31 -- 2. Human Rights as an Ideology 39 -- The Authors of Human Rights 39 -- A Holy Trinity: Liberalism, Democrac y, and Human Rights 44 -- The Conventional Doctrinalists 47 -- The Conc eptualizers 56 -- The Cultural Pluralists 64 -- Political Strategists a nd Instrumentalists 67 -- 3. Human Rights and the African Fingerprint 7 1 -- Africa in a Rights Universe 71 -- Human Rights in Precolonial Afri ca 74 -- The Dialectic of Rights and Duties 82 -- The Duty/Rights Conce ption 84 -- Whither Africa? 92 -- 4. Human Rights, Religion, and Prosel ytism 94 -- The Problem of Religious Rights 94 -- Demonizing the "Other " 98.