I came to the collective project that led to this book not, obviously, as an Asian, nor even as a specialist on Asian politics or society. Rather, I am an American who has spent most of his academic career studying the theory of human rights and international human rights practices. Having long been interested in questions of cultural relativism,1 I eagerly accepted the oppor¬tunity to address recent arguments advocating a distinctive "Asian" approach to human rights.
That I largely reject these Asian arguments is a sign not of disrespect but of d