Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor who served as United States Ambassador to the Vatican, examines how American political discourse became dominated by the language of individual rights at the expense of other moral vocabularies. Written in 1991, the book argues that American 'rights talk' differs from rights discourse in other democracies by being more absolutist, more individualistic, and more silent about responsibilities and community. Glendon traces how this peculiarly American dialect evolved from the Founding through the expansion of constitutional rights in the twentieth century, showing how it tends to inhibit genuine dialogue about hard moral and political questions. Rather than abandoning rights language, Glendon calls for a richer vocabulary that includes attention to responsibilities, to the common good, and to the mediating institutions between individual and state. She draws on comparative analysis of other democracies, particularly continental European countries, to show that robust rights protection need not come in absolutist form. The book has influenced debates across the political spectrum, with conservatives finding support for communitarian themes and progressives recognizing the limits of litigation as a strategy for social change. Readers will find here a thoughtful critique of assumptions so deeply embedded in American political culture that they often go unexamined.