The enormous popularity of his pamphlet Common Sense made Thomas Paine one of the best-known patriots during the early years of American independence. His subsequent service with the Continental Army, his publication of The American Crisis (1776–83), and his work with Pennsylvania’s revolutionary government consolidated his reputation as one of the foremost radicals of the Revolution. Thereafter, Paine spent almost fifteen years in Europe, where he was actively involved in the French Revolution, articulating his radical social, economic, and political vision in major publications such as The Rights of Man (1791), The Age of Reason (1793-1807), and Agrarian Justice (1797). Such radicalism was deemed a danger to the state in his native Britain, where Paine was found guilty of sedition, and even in the United States some of Paine’s later publications lost him a great deal of his early popularity. Yet despite this legacy, historians have paid less attention to Paine than to other leading Patriots such as Thomas Jefferson. In Paine and Jefferson in the Age of Revolutions, editors Simon Newman and Peter Onuf present a collection of essays that examine how the reputations of two figures whose outlooks were so similar have had such different trajectories.

From acclaimed historian John Ferling, the story of how Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and James Monroe championed the most radical ideas of the American and French Revolutions. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and James Monroe were in the vanguard of revolutionary ideas in the 18th century. As founding fathers, they risked their lives for American independence, but they also wanted more. Each wished for profound changes in the political and social fabric of pre-1776 America and hoped that the American Revolution would spark republican and egalitarian revolutions throughout Europe, sweeping away the old monarchical order. Ultimately, each rejoiced at the opportunity to be a part of the French Revolution, a cause that became untenable as idealism gave way to the bloody Terror. Apostles of Revolution spans a crucial period in Western Civilization ranging from the American insurgency against Great Britain to the Declaration of Independence, from desperate engagements on American battlefields to the threat posed to the ideals of the Revolution by the Federalist Party. With the French Revolution devolving into anarchy in the background, the era culminates with the “Revolution of 1800,” Jefferson's election as president. Written as a sweeping narrative of a pivotal epoch, Apostles of Revolution captures the turbulent spirit of the times and the personal dangers experienced by Jefferson, Paine, and Monroe. It reminds us that the liberty we take for granted is ours only because we, both champions and common citizens, have fought for it.

Drawing from numerous historical sources, the editor summarizes the views of Paine and Jefferson on liberty in America, and on the contrasting political realities in Europe as well.

This collection of essays by Bernard Vincent covers most aspects of Thomas Paine's life, thought, and works. It highlights Paine's contribution to the American and French Revolutions, as well as the active role he played in the intellectual debates of the Age of Enlightenment, in particular through his heated arguments with Edmund Burke or the Abbé Raynal. More than two centuries later, those debates--on the 'universal' nature of human rights or the 'exceptionalism' of the American experience--seem today to be more relevant than ever. Not only have Common Sense, Rights of Man and The Age of Reason become classics of Anglo-American literature, but, from the moment they appeared, they ushered in a new type of writer, a new way of writing--and a new class of readers. How Paine stormed the "Bastille of Words," and in so doing served both the "republic" of letters and the cause of democracy, is the real subject of this book.

'Common Sense, ' written by Thomas Paine, was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the American Revolution. 'Common Sense, ' signed 'Written by an Englishman', became an immediate success. In relation to the population of the Colonies at that time, it had the largest sale and circulation of any book in American history. 'Common Sense' presented the American colonists with a powerful argument for independence from British rule at a time when the question of independence was still undecided. The 'Declaration of Independence, ' written by Thomas Jefferson, is a statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with Great Britain were now independent states, and thus no longer a part of the British Empire. The 'Declaration of Independence' gives a formal explanation of why Congress voted to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The birthday of the United States of America-Independence Day-is celebrated on July 4, the day the wording of the 'Declaration of Independence' was approved by Congre

An authoritative collection of Thomas Paine’s essential writings on American politics and governance—including the landmark Revolutionary War pamphlet, Common Sense After a life of obscurity and failure in England, Thomas Paine came to America in 1774 at age 37. Within fourteen months he published Common Sense, the most influential pamphlet of the American Revolution, and began a career that would see him hailed and reviled in the American nation he helped create. Collected in this volume are Paine's most influential texts. In Common Sense, he sets forth an inspiring vision of an independent America as an asylum for freedom and an example of popular self-government in a world oppressed by despotism and hereditary privilege. The American Crisis, begun during “the times that try men’s souls” in 1776, is a masterpiece of popular pamphleteering in which Paine vividly reports current developments, taunts and ridicules British adversaries, and enjoins his readers to remember the immense stakes of their struggle. They are joined in this invaluable reader by a selection of Paine’s other American pamphlets and his letters to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others.