Citizen Tom Paine

by Howard Fast

Among Howard Fast's historical fiction, Citizen Tom Paine-one of America's all-time best-sellers-occupies a special place, for it restored to a generation of readers the vision of Paine's revolutionary passion as the authentic roots of our national beginnings. Fast gives us "a vivid picture of Paine's mode of writing, idiosyncrasies, and character-generous, nobly unselfish, moody, often dirty, frequently drunken, a revolutionist by avocation"-Library Journal

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, American Revolution, American History, Classics, Politics, Historical

341 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

Howard Fast was one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century. He was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. The son of immigrants, Fast grew up in New York City and published his first novel upon finishing high school in 1933. In 1950, his refusal to provide the United States Congress with a list of possible Communist associates earned him a three-month prison sentence. During his incarceration, Fast wrote one of his best-known novels, Spartacus (1951). Throughout his long career, Fast matched his commitment to championing social justice in his writing with a deft, lively storytelling style.

Pseudonyms: Walter Ericson, E.V. Cunningham

Reviews

[Theo Logos · Rating 5 out of 5]

“In his unshaven, hook-nosed, wigless head, there was something both fierce and magnificent, a grinding savagery that might be sculptured as the whole meaning of revolution."


Howard Fast’s Citizen Tom Paine is an unlikely hero. A coarse man with a chip on his shoulder, rash, and often drunk. This Paine is good only for revolution, a lonely wanderer, who says that the world is his village, and wherever freedom is not, there he will be. He is the prophet of the age of the common man, firebrand of two revolutions, old "Common Sense". And in the end, despite all that he contributed to liberty and his fellow citizen of three nations, he is forsaken by all to die alone. Even his bones are lost and given no rest.

Fast’s Paine is surrounded by a cast of historical greats - Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Burke, Blake, Marat, Robespierre, and Bonaparte - all men that Paine knew and moved among. Here they are bit characters beside Paine, background to his monument. In Citizen Tom Paine, Howard Fast returns our most abused and neglected founder back to his central place in the Age of Revolution.

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 3 out of 5]

May 3, morning ~~ Second title to review asap. I'll be playing catch-up today. Really.

Evening ~~ The first half of this book about Thomas Paine was gripping, fast-moving, and sometimes quite surprising. But in the second half, I had trouble keeping interested and ended up skimming.

But oh, that first half!!

Thomas Paine leaves England, a failure in more ways than one. He arrives in America, sick, with only a letter from Benjamin Franklin to help him out in this new country. What will he do now?

There must have been gaps in my American History classes in school because I honestly don't remember anything about this man. He became a writer, a philosopher, a man who kept the fledgling country going by reminding its Minutemen why they were fighting. He idolized George Washington, was close friends with Thomas Jefferson, but never felt himself to be their equal. He had issues, big time issues, which he channeled into some of the most stirring words ever written in his Common Sense, Crisis pamphlets, and eventually The Rights Of Man.

But according to the author, Paine was seen as a monster by the time of his death, and no one seemed to remember what he really hoped for: a world where The People mattered more than they did at the time (and more than they do now). He didn't want just one country to follow his ideas, he wanted the entire world to do so. You may call him a dreamer. But at one time he was not the only one. He inspired with these words which still ring out loud and clear today:
"Let them call me rebel, and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man...."

One thing that struck me while reading this book was how the author showed how very close the United States of America came to not existing at all. And not just that, but if the author is to be believed (and there is no reason not to believe him) then the very chasms separating so many of us during our times were there right from the beginning. A cracked foundation is not a strong support for anything.

"The split that had been brewing for so long in America, between the party of the people and the party of trade and power, snapped wide open."

The IDEA of America is what has appealed to the world since day one. The REALITY of it is quite different now. Can the two ever meet again? Can anyone step into Thomas Paine's shoes and rally the people to become something better than what we have drifted into?

Just imagine.

[Ali Malekpoor · Rating 3 out of 5]

شخصیت تام پین بسیار الهام برانگیز بود.بخش اول کتاب که زندگی پین در آمریکا و غربت و تلاش هاش در راه استقلال آمریکا رو توصیف میکنه بسیار خواندنی بود.فاست به خوبی به شخصیت های جانبی و شهر ها و وقایع تاریخی نیز گریزی میزد تا دچار ملال نشویم.اما بخش دوم که پین به انگلستان و فرانسه میرود مشخصا فاست از لحاظ مصالح داستانی به کمبود خورده و با بحر طویلی که از زندگی پین توصیف میکنه یک رمان تاریخی معمولی تحویل میدهد.

[منوچهر محور]

ص ۲۹۰

شهردار گلاسگو فریاد می‌کشید که هر پادو صیادی در تپه‌ها، هر بافنده، هر شاگرد آسیابان، و هر کارآموز آهنگری، سرگرم خواندن کثافتی خیانت‌آمیز به نام 《حقوق بشر》است.

ص ۲۹۸

مطبعه‌چی... را به دادگاه احضار کرده بودند... اتهام، خیانت به دولت، به سبب انتشار کتابی جنایت‌آمیز به نام《حقوق بشر》

ص ۲۹۹

اقدام بعدی دولت صدور اعلامیه‌ای بود که تشکیل بدون اجازه هرگونه گردهمایی و انتشار هرگونه نوشته فتنه‌انگیز را قدغن می‌کرد.

[Ali · Rating 3 out of 5]

خواندن اثار هوارد فاست کمک می کند تا تاریخ آمریکا را به گونه ای دیگر، از درون آینه ی ادبیات بشناسیم. اگرچه نه به آن دقت و جزئیات که تاریخ یک قرن فرانسه را می شود از طریق خواندن آثار بالزاک شناخت، با این همه هوارد فاست یک آمریکایی ست که با همه ی دید انتقادی نسبت به فرهنگ و تاریخ ملتش، هم چنان دلسوز مردم و میهن خود باقی مانده است. مهاجران را باجلان فرخی ترجمه کرده و انتشارات اساطیر در 1371 منتشر کرده است. نسل دوم را به فارسی ندیده ام. با وجودی که در برابر دیگر آثار هوارد فاست آنچنان درخشش ندارد، اما کم اثری نیست و مهر روایت های هوارد فاست را بر خود دارد، با وصف شیرینی از شخصیت ها و شرایط اجتماعی و چگونگی زندگی آمریکاییان ساده دل ... "آخرین مرز" هوارد فاست، وصف شایان ها در جامعه ی آمریکاست؛ “غائله تمام شد" اما به راستی تمام نشده. وقتی 140 سرخپوست گرفتار به اردوگاه برده می شوند، تازه پایان یک آغاز است. آغازی برای از میان بردن یک فرهنگ، قتل هزاران نفر از یک ملیت که در سراسر زمینی پر از خون و اشک، در سرزمین خود هم از حق انتخاب گور محروم اند. (ص( 246 وقتی افسر فرمانده به سه رهبر “شایان" می گوید باید به جنوب بروند، پاسخ می دهند “یک شایان دستگیر شده، یک شایان مرده است. آنها مایل نیستند به جنوب بروند و…” دلم نمی خواست به سطر بعدی بروم، نمی خواستم بدانم چه می شود. می خواستم با این “شایان"های دستگیر شده بمانم. افسر به مترجم می گوید “غلط می کنند بر نمی گردند" مترجم که خود از شایان هاست، مکث می کند، به راستی باید این جمله را ترجمه کند؟ فاست وصف می کند شایان ها چگونه ایستاده بودند. آنها دیگر “گرگ کوچک"، “چاقوی کند "و "ابر راه رونده" نیستند، تنها سه “شایان" دستگیر شده اند، سه موجود شکسته شده با پاره جل هایی بر دوششان در زمستانی که استخوان می ترکاند، در دفتر سروان که از آتش بخاری گرم است، ایستاده اند. سه سایه ی بی نام که گوشه ای از اتاق را پر کرده اند. آنها که قبیله ای داشتند، با مردمانی و سرزمینی از خود که زیر پای “پونی"هاشان تخت سلیمان بود، اینک سه جنبنده ی بی نام اند، سه از دست رفته، سه شکست خورده که همه ی حیثیت و شرافتشان بر باد رفته، و هم چنان از جانب افسران و سربازان متجاوز “وحشی ها" خوانده می شوند. شاید این وحشی ها از خود می پرسند؛ خداوندا، مرز بین تمدن و وحش کجاست؟ مرز میان گرسنه ای آواره در سرزمین خود که زیر سایه ی چتری از آخرین مدل هواپیماهای بمب افکن مبهوت ایستاده است! فاست در ابتدای کتاب از پدرش تشکر می کند که سفارش کرده؛ “آمریکای گذشته و آمریکای فعلی را دوست بدارد". شایان های معاصر، خوب می دانند چرا مراکز گرسنگی، بیماری، درد، فقر، وحشت و تروردر سرزمین آنها مستقر شده. اسلحه ها را متمدین دموکرات می سازند تا “تروریست ها" را روی منابع زیر زمینی شان خفه کنند.
Reading Howard Fast helps to read American history with a reflection from the literature. No matter how critically Fast faces American society, he loves his father land, his culture and his nation, deeply and respectfully.
تام پین روایتی ست از صدها حکایت، از جنگ های داخلی و استقلال آمریکا و آنچه به انقلاب آمریکا معروف است و... در ابتدای کتاب جملاتی از بنجامین راش آمده که: هیچ چیز مبتذل تر از درآمیختن مبحث انقلاب آمریکا با جنگ های استقلال آمریکا نیست. جنگ استقلال آمریکا به پایان رسیده اما تنها پرده ی نخستین نمایش بزرگ "انقلاب آمریکا" تمام شده است. تام پین را حسن کامشاد به فارسی برگردانده و انتشارات خوارزمی در 1353 منتشر کرده است.

[Jon Zelazny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Paine is less a full-blooded character in Howard Fast’s breakout historical novel than some tormented, ghostly cheerleader who drifts, ZELIG-like, in and out of the American and French revolutions. With so much of his life spent in utter decrepitude, it’s nothing short of miraculous that his passionate written appeals to the working class become the beating heart and defining ethos of the rebel colonies. And is there anything more American than rooting for a bum who becomes a hero?

Fast rarely offers vivid descriptions of battle, but what he really nails about the Revolution is the crippling uncertainty and lack of cohesion. Paine is aghast at the vast swathes of colonists who scorn or undermine the beleaguered freedom fighters, and even some of the greatest proponents of liberty tended to disappear into the woodwork following any encroaching British victory.

Americans love war stories where we lose—The Alamo, Little Big Horn, Pearl Harbor—and boy, did we lose in the Revolution, suffering battlefield defeat after defeat after defeat. Sure, I learned all this in school once upon a time, but books like this should be required reading here every decade or so. We’re just unbelievably lucky that a lasting nation arose out of such chaos and strife, and that far beyond the men we honor on our currency are all the “little men” who starved and froze at Valley Forge. These were the people Tom Paine identified with and gave voice to.

Sadly, the final third turns almost unbearably tragic as Paine attempts to re-work his same revolutionary magic in England, then France, only to look on, befuddled and disdained, as revolution curdles into civil unrest, the Reign of Terror, and the dictatorship of Napoleon. It reminded me of that epic Benicio del Toro-as-Che Guevara movie from a few years ago, where the same strategies and tactics that worked so beautifully in seizing Cuba resulted in dismal failure when subsequently attempted in Bolivia.

[Curtiss · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Howard Fast's book, "April Morning" about the first day of the American Revolution (see my review), I also bought "Citizen Tom Paine", another of Fast's historical novels - he wrote about one a year during the 40's and 50's, and it too is excellent. I found myself all wound up in knots reading the response to Paine's "Common Sense" throughout the colonies. This was after Bell, the publisher, originally planned on a run of 500 books, overpriced them at 2 shillings apiece because he didn't expect to sell even that many, and then ended up selling over a Hundred Thousand copies! So many that Bell lost count - and that didn't even include the various "wildcat" runs of hundreds or thousands of copies put out by publishers in other colonies.

In a large measure, it's thanks to "Common Sense" and Paine's follow-up pamphlets called "The Crisis" I, II, III etc... that we even have an Indepedent America today. Paine wasn't an admirable character, but Fast shows how Paine's anger burned itself into our national consciousness, and helped us sustain our fight for Independence. They're both small books, but highly recommended! I plan to find more of his historical novels and read them as well.

[George · Rating 5 out of 5]

A CAPTIVATING READ.

“War was in the air, albeit vaguely, but people did not want war; freedom was in the air, too, but most people didn’t give two damns about freedom.” (Loc. 292)

Howard Fast was a master of his craft. A consummate storyteller. He had the knack of making is characters—both fictitious and historical—seem almost more real than real.

In his historical fiction, Citizen Tom Paine, I very much enjoyed and appreciated his insightful glimpses of the person and the personality that was Thomas Paine—a somewhat strange duck, indeed.

Recommendation: Howard Fast’s Citizen Tom Paine is very much a must read for all U. S. history buffs.

“Of all ways to hold man in contempt and make a beast of him, war is the worst.” (Loc. 1,205)

Open Road Media. Kindle Edition. 5,054 Kindle Locations. 348 pages.

[Roberta Havel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but I found it hard to follow. Lots of old English dialogue and the The book was over written. While I learned some, I think it would have been more interesting to learn about Tom Paine on Wikipedia.

[Martin Denton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Citizen Tom Paine affected me deeply. It's a fictionalized account of the life of Thomas Paine, one of the founders of the United States of America (according to the book, he's the one who coined that name). There's no indication in the book of sources or how much is true and how much is invented, but as far as I can tell it gets the main facts correct. I don't remember learning anything about Paine in school or college, and no one ever assigned me to read any of his important works, which include Common Sense, in which he laid down the reasons for the American War of Independence; The Crisis, written during the war, in which he amplified the causes and effects of that struggle; The Rights of Man, a more generalized call for the rule of the common man and the end of tyranny; and The Age of Reason, the book that ruined him, about the abuses of organized religion. (Note that I am repeating here what I learned from Citizen Tom Paine; I now need to read all of these works on my own.)

Anyway, the book has the shape of a traditional biography, rendered novelistically through the use of flashback and numerous scenes with imagined dialogue. It's a compelling read, and tells a terrific story that might be harder to believe if it were not so clearly based in fact. Because Paine's life was extraordinary.

Fast's Paine flounders for decades before realizing that the one thing he's good at is being an incendiary--the "Revolutionist at Large." Paine's talent is to express the "common sense" that men should be free (of tyranny and of hypocrisy) and able to pursue their own individuality. Fast shows us Paine spreading this message through his famous pamphlets and books, and also in meetings and conversations, for despite his seemingly anti-social demeanor he is a great lover of humanity in the abstract and face-to-face.

Fast is always clear about his purpose in telling Paine's ultimately tragic story. Here's one devastating example, a description of Paine's visit to a posh London club during his brief moment of unadulterated celebrity:

Fortunes slipped across the table at Brooks's. Ten thousand pounds on the turn of a card, a whole estate on the deal of one hand. Somewhere in London, poor wretches still starved by the thousands, ripped out their guts with hot gin, lived twelve in a room, worked for threepence a day; but at Brooks's ten and twenty and thirty thousand pounds hung on the turn of a card.

Two important themes resonated with me. First, there is the message that Fast tells us Paine burned to communicate: that people must be free, not bound by others in what they must do or how they must think. And second, there's the sad arc of a life in which a man finds his purpose and works hard to achieve it, only to be cast aside when the world has moved on. Paine could have stayed famous after Common Sense--which was most likely the best-selling and most-read book of its time, with the possible exception of the Bible--but he was never one to compromise into comfort and he kept finding new struggles to involve himself in, new tyrannies to rail against.

Paine is a difficult hero, and Fast doesn't shy away from showing us his worst qualities. (Neither does Fast hold back in his depiction of the easily swayed, too-often apathetic mass of common man, in America and elsewhere.) But in the end, Fast admires Thomas Paine, undoubtedly, and this excellent novel is tribute to a worthy hero--nearly forgotten, I think, when Fast wrote about him in 1943 and certainly today.

[Willard Brickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slightly marred by the imposition of Fast's own political views, but a fine historical novel.

[Ian Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite author... can't wait to get teeth into this book. if this is anything like Howard's other novels, I'm in for a treat...!!

[Katie Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The revolution goes on; a man does not make the revolution, not a thousand men, not an army and not a party; the revolution comes from the people as they reach toward God, and a little of God is in each person and each will not forget it. This it is the revolution when slaves shake their chains and the revolution when a strong man bends toward a weaker and says, "Here, comrade, is my arm." The revolution goes on and nothing stops it; but because the people are seeking what is good, not what is wicked or powerful or cruel or rich or venal, but simply what is good--because of that the people flounder and feel along one dark road after another. The people no more all-seeing than their rulers once were; it is in intention that they differ.”

"The new world had renounced God, and thereby, to Paine's way of thinking, they had renounced the reason for man to exist. Man is a part of God, or else he is a beast; and beasts know love and fear and hate and hunger--but not exultation. As Paine saw it now, man's history was a vision of godliness. From the deep, dark morass he had come, from the jungles and the lonely mountains and the windswept steppes, and always his way had been the way of the seeker. He made civilization and he made a morality and he made a pact of brotherhood. One day, he ceased to kill the aged and venerated them, ceased to kill the sick and healed them, ceased to kill the lost and showed them how to find themselves."

[Joseph Viola · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast's Citizen Tom Paine was thoroughly enjoyable. This book requires some previous knowledge of the American and French Revolutions to be able to really immerse yourself in the story (John Jay being sent to England to hammer out the Jay Treaty and why it was necessary, Marat's murder, etc, are assumed the reader already knows these details, since Fast does little expansion on many events such as these). Fast also did little developing of any character other than Paine. Even Jefferson and Washington are relegated to supporting cast. Nevertheless, Fast's portrayal of Paine the man and his relationship with three countries at the end of the 18th century is a compelling narrative, and well worth a read for anyone interested in this era of history.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the writers of our American revolution with whom I became acquainted in high school, my favorite is Thomas Paine. This was also the case with the colonists themselves, Paine's publications being bestsellers upon issuance. While I'd learned something about the man back then, I'd not known about his later participation in the French revolution or about his life in Britain. Fast covers these as well as the personal side of the man in his novel.

[Lance Mellon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific book. Written in 1943 and reads like it was written yesterday. Great stuff. It begins with Tom Paine being made to wait to visit Ben Franklin in England (where Paine is from). Down and out he gets a recommendation letter from Franklin and on his way he is to America and the rest is history. Well written classic about an incredible, unusual man in a wonderful time and place. This should be required reading in school for many reasons.

[Richard Epstein · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this when I was just a boy and really liked it; but that was before I knew Howard Fast was a Communist who wanted to take away "The Adventures of Superman" and Steak 'n' Shake and the Cardinals and replace them with The Adventures of Stalin and grass-and-weed sandwiches and The Stalingrad Stalins. I wouldn't have liked it if I'd known. Honest, Sen. McCarthy.

[Ruby Emam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazingly interesting with such historical facts that so few will believe, yet it seems to be so true. WOW... The whole history of what we know about the Revolution is wrong. I have visited Tom Paine's grave in New Rochelle, NY. So simple and insignificant for such a great person.

[David Black · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought I knew quite a lot about Paine. I stand corrected. The author has indeed made an irascible Paine into a very human figure. A veritable tormented soul, a clinically depressed, irascible alcoholic, who using his pluck, not only survived until 72 of age, but influenced the course of 2 nations. Whether his actions proved beneficial to either nation, ultimately salutory or not is for continued debate.

I think author did a remarkable job of describing the illiteracy, backwardness, ignorance, and low estate of those people in the 3 countries, England, France, and the U.S. I greatly question these people's ability to govern themselves. (I grew up in slums. My parents always voted for policies that increased their low estate.) It illustrates how easily the uneducated, generally uninformed people of the world, can be manipulated. A favorable answer to the question of whether this type of people, however pathetic and sympathy engendering their conditions arre, may not be WISE enough to intelligently govern themselves. Mao's successor, when asked about historical consequences were 200 years later, responded, presciently, "We don't know yet!"

Ben Franklin, in 1789, said, "We have made a republic, IF WE CAN KEEP IT." America's history, contary to commonly held myth, has had a very rocky , uneven course, with only a few highlights. After Russian revolution, putting Lenin in power, the Romanovs still actally governed Russia. The American mistake is that "anybody can govern." Not so. Though people may be legally BORN equal in Jeffersonian and Lockiaing theory, I greatly question the reality of that premise. To treat people equally is to treat them unfairly, for they are not equal. The rich are ALWAYS "more equal than the rest" in ALL of their dealings.

Plato understood well the plasticity of the masses, their propensity for being manipulation by the tawdry uthorblandishments of clever despots.

I am again reminded that the people of Paine's day were also manipulated by a group of wealthy, hot headed Bostonian smugglers. and disgruntled slave holding Virginians. Fiery clergyman Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death!" was not uttered for freedom of religion, but for freedom from British trade laws.

Though the author made Paine human, it does not serve as a hagiography.

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast-paced, cinematic treatment of the life of Thomas (not Tom to his friends) Paine, the revolutionist and bestselling author of Common Sense, Rights of Man, and Age of Reason. A relatively short (341 pages), breezy book, easy to read in a day. Unlike a conventional biography, Fast's novel, originally published in 1943, humanizes Paine, providing sympathetic insight into Paine's thoughts at key moments in his life. Given the lack of documentation of Paine's life, that insight—and the accompanying emotion it brings—is invaluable. The story skips over Paine's two brief marriages and much of his early life, as do most Paine biographies, and it speeds through Paine's turbulent period in France, but the book still feels like a complete portrait of the man. It also makes more sense of the Silas Deane affair than many other historical accounts. Fast (author of Spartacus, Freedom Road, April Morning, and Max) wrote more than 80 books, including popular mysteries and historical novels, but this is his biggest bestseller, and deservedly so. He was a member of the Communist Party when he wrote Citizen Tom Paine, but he quit the party in 1956 after Stalin’s atrocities were exposed.

For more thoughts on Thomas Paine, see my blog entry: Celebrating Thomas Paine, the Radical Founder.

[Joe Santoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Fast's sketch of Paine is a little bit relentlessly depressing, he does a great job showing his role and importance in the founding of the nation, which is sometimes glossed over in favor of others that stayed around the political scene after the Revolution was won.

The writing loses it's way a bit after the Revolution, and a bit too much time is spent analyzing Paine's state of mind, which clearly is just the wildest of guesses, but overall and excellent piece.

I didn't find the politics at all overdone as some have written, while it's clear Fast is a socialist of some sort, it's doesn't get in the way of the story at all.

[Charles T. Fincher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Learned things about a man I thought I knew!

This, like Fast's other books was well written, always interesting and easy to comprehend. Unlike many books about Paine, he did not stop with information about Common Sense, but gave a fascinating picture of the balance of his life in England and France, showing the good along with the bad he promoted. This is a book well worth reading!

[Trisha Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the man who was "the veritable voice of the American Revolution." One quote from the book is especially relevant today..."We are fighting an organized enemy--and the people are not an organization; they're a mob. And a mob does not make a democracy; a mob looks for someone to lead it, and if someone is clever enough, it can be led into the devils' mouth." Hum, sound familiar?

[Brian Krouse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good story that can stir the soul, but not the best written

This story could range from something I couldn’t put down, to kind of a slog, in a page. Over all I did enjoy is, but it could be tough at times, and I believe it was the authors writing style that caused it.

[James Kee · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting account of someone known more for his works, such as Common Sense, and less of him as a person. Hard to tell how much was inverted, but the story is compelling and provides a good opportunity to learn more about the times and the people involved with the American Revolution.

[Michael Evnin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit tedious

Written as if by an author at that time. Makes it a bit hard to follow. Moves slowly. Needs focus. Not a "page turner". Students of history may find this book useful.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book worth reading every 50 years or so!

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting, sympathetic portrayal. I enjoyed the portions in revolutionary France the most. It certainly makes me interested in reading a proper biography of Tom Paine.

[Sekhar N Banerjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating biography

I knew very little about Tom Paine, excepting as the author of Commonsense. This book was both a fascinating read and edifying.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and informative.