Includes the complete texts of Common Sense; Rights of Man, Part the Second; The Age of Reason (part one); Four Letters on Interesting Subjects, published anonymously and just discovered to be Paine's work; and Letter to the Abbe Raynal, Paine's first examination of world events; as well as selections from The American Crises
In 1776, America was a hotbed of enlightenment and revolution. Thomas Paine not only spurred his fellow Americans to action but soon came to symbolize the spirit of the Revolution. His elegantly persuasive pieces spoke to the...

Thomas Paine was arguably the single most influential political writer during the American and French Revolutions. For this revised and updated edition the distinguished intellectual historian Bruce Kuklick brings together an expanded collection of the classic Paine texts--Common Sense, Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason--as well as the first of Paine's papers on The Crisis of 1776. A brief chronology, updated notes for further reading, and a succinct and lucid introduction to the principal themes of each text give further help to the student reader.

Thomas Paine, defender of freedom, independence, and rational common sense during America's turbulent revolutionary period, offers insights into religion which ring sharply true more than two centuries later. This unabridged edition of The Age of Reason sets forth Paine's provocative observations on the place of religion in society.

Written in part as a theoretical reply to the stodgy conservatism of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution (1790), Paine's Rights of Man (1791-92) sets forth a manifesto of popular democratic rule in the established tradition of John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In it Paine offers a discussion of the nature of political man and proceeds to encourage the grass-roots revolutionary movements that seek to analyze critically and, where necessary, reform or replace social and political institutions, many of which tend only to repress those whom they were initially...

The Anglo-American writer and political theorist Thomas Paine (1737-1809) boldly spoke out for social and political reforms, and played an active role in the American War of Independence. His great and highly influential pamphlet, Common Sense, published in January 1776, was the first bold, explicit assault on monarchical rule, and the first advocacy of the American colonies' independence from Britain.
Written in clear language, Common Sense laid out how an independent government could be established and controlled by the people, and how rich and poor alike could share equally in...

Thomas Paine arrived in America from England in 1774. A friend of Benjamin Franklin, he was a writer of poetry and tracts condemning the slave trade. In 1775, as hostilities between Britain and the colonies intensified, Paine wrote Common Sense to encourage the colonies to break the British exploitative hold and fight for independence. The little booklet of 50 pages was published January 10, 1776 and sold a half-million copies, approximately equal to 75 million copies today.

Thomas Paine was a brilliant man who played a vital role in the American Revolution of 1776. This was the last book he wrote, which centers almost entirely around Christianity. To Paine, it made sense to question everything in order to make valid answers possible. He puts forth many questions in this book regarding Christianity, confronting many beliefs with pure and rational reason.

In the winter of 1776, the American War of Independence, which had been declared months before, was in trouble. British troops had quickly advanced through New York to crush the rebellion, and the Continental army was in retreat and on the verge of disintegration. At the end of that year, on the 23rd of December, Thomas Paine, who had previously inspired the revolutionary cause with his stirring pamphlet Common Sense, published the first of a new series of essays aptly titled The Crisis. Paine had a gift for memorable phrasing and the first words of The Crisis soon became...