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Thomas Paine Collection: Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, An Essay on Dream, Biblical Blasphemy, Examination Of The Prophecies
This collection is organized as SenseOn the Origin and Design of Government in General, with Concise Remarks on the English ConstitutionOf Monarchy and Hereditary SuccessionThoughts on the Present State of American AffairsOf the Present Ability of with some Miscellaneous ReflectionsThe Rights of ManPart I. Being an answer to Mr. Burke’s attack on the French RevolutionPart II. Combining Principle and PracticeAppendixThe Age of ReasonIntroductionPart FirstPreface to Part IIPart SecondConclusionEssay on DreamAuthor’s PrefaceIntroductory ChapterBiblical BlasphemyExamination of the PropheciesThe Book of MatthewThe Book of MarkThe Book of LukeThe Book of JohnConclusionAuthor’s Appendix
653 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 3, 2015
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About the author
Thomas Paine
1,477 books1,833 followersThomas Paine was an English-American political activist, author, political theorist and revolutionary. As the author of two highly influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, he inspired the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. He has been called "a corset maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination".
Born in Thetford, England, in the county of Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American book that advocated colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–83), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."
Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), in part a defence of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention. The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy.
In December 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of his pamphlet The Age of Reason (1793–94), in which he advocated deism, promoted reason and freethinking, and argued against institutionalized religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular. He also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. In 1802, he returned to America where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity.
Born in Thetford, England, in the county of Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American book that advocated colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–83), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."
Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), in part a defence of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention. The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy.
In December 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of his pamphlet The Age of Reason (1793–94), in which he advocated deism, promoted reason and freethinking, and argued against institutionalized religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular. He also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. In 1802, he returned to America where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 7, 2022
Important read.
Common Sense is a polemic against monarchy and military subjugation that galvanized America on the eve of Revolution. A must read for anyone studying American Federal history.
The Rights of Man furthers this argument against hereditary monarchy and its despotisms against the backdrop of the early states of the French Revolution, again in polemical style echoing the "natural rights" arguments of the enlightenment with an immediate political bent. It is organized as a series of arguments against the anti-Revolutionary work of Edmund Burke and is an important source text for the debate over "natural science" and rights in the preferred republican polity.
The Age of Reason, authored in two parts (the first from Paris at during the Terror; the second fifteen years later after Paine had escaped from the guillotine to New York) is a defense of thorough-going deism against the claims of "revelation", the practices of the church and what Paine develops in debunking Christianity and all "revealed" religions. It's anti-Christian agenda expands the idea that because the authorship of the Old and New Testament are factitious, that confused claims for Divine inspiration in the Bible are fictitious or worse, irreligious. No doubt this work was not one used in the USA's generally anti-secular public school systems to avoid massive objection from "Christian" students and parents. An interesting read, but in its polemical role less than persuasive on many levels, it nonetheless shows the logical extreme of deist belief in a single supreme diety manifest in the "harmony" of mechanical and biological nature. This is a rather hard slog, but a remarkable position that most accurately reflects the "scientific" and anti-clerical mind of many of our founding fathers. As logical argument none of these works bear close reading: they speak as rhetoric and political campaign rather than as speculative or political philosophy.
Common Sense is a polemic against monarchy and military subjugation that galvanized America on the eve of Revolution. A must read for anyone studying American Federal history.
The Rights of Man furthers this argument against hereditary monarchy and its despotisms against the backdrop of the early states of the French Revolution, again in polemical style echoing the "natural rights" arguments of the enlightenment with an immediate political bent. It is organized as a series of arguments against the anti-Revolutionary work of Edmund Burke and is an important source text for the debate over "natural science" and rights in the preferred republican polity.
The Age of Reason, authored in two parts (the first from Paris at during the Terror; the second fifteen years later after Paine had escaped from the guillotine to New York) is a defense of thorough-going deism against the claims of "revelation", the practices of the church and what Paine develops in debunking Christianity and all "revealed" religions. It's anti-Christian agenda expands the idea that because the authorship of the Old and New Testament are factitious, that confused claims for Divine inspiration in the Bible are fictitious or worse, irreligious. No doubt this work was not one used in the USA's generally anti-secular public school systems to avoid massive objection from "Christian" students and parents. An interesting read, but in its polemical role less than persuasive on many levels, it nonetheless shows the logical extreme of deist belief in a single supreme diety manifest in the "harmony" of mechanical and biological nature. This is a rather hard slog, but a remarkable position that most accurately reflects the "scientific" and anti-clerical mind of many of our founding fathers. As logical argument none of these works bear close reading: they speak as rhetoric and political campaign rather than as speculative or political philosophy.
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May 16, 2025THIS SHOULD BE READ BY EVERONE PROBABLY MORE THAN ONCE.
EVEN WITH 'THE DECLINE AND FALL' UNDER THE BELT FROM MY TORTURED YOUTH, I SHOULD NOT GIVEN THIS ON ANOTHER GO. NO.
EVEN WITH 'THE DECLINE AND FALL' UNDER THE BELT FROM MY TORTURED YOUTH, I SHOULD NOT GIVEN THIS ON ANOTHER GO. NO.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews