'A declaration of rights is indispensable in order to halt the ravages of despotism.' So wrote the revolutionary Antoine Barnave in support of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789). Sometimes playful or poetic, always provocative, Vaneigem reviews the history of bills of rights before offering his own call, with commentary, for 57 rights yet to be won in a world where the 'freedoms accorded to Man' are no longer merely 'the freedoms accorded by man to the economy'.
