person1770s-1809

Thomas Paine

Disciplines:

Summary

Anglo-American political radical and pamphleteer whose Common Sense made independence comprehensible to ordinary Americans and whose Rights of Man was the defining radical text of the French Revolutionary era.

Core Contribution

Common Sense: the case for American independence, written for a popular audience — the most widely read political pamphlet in American history. Rights of Man: a systematic defense of the French Revolution and of natural rights against Edmund Burke. The Age of Reason: a deist critique of the Bible — alienated religious readers but was influential in freethought circles.

Key Spikes & Highlights

Died in poverty and near-obscurity in New York in 1809 — the man who had helped create two republics (American and French) was too deist for American religious culture and too radical for the established order.
His bones were dug up after his death by William Cobbett, who intended to bring them to England for a monument — Cobbett died before doing so and Paine's remains were lost.

Notable Works & Achievements

Common Sense

The American Crisis

Rights of Man

The Age of Reason

Historical Influences

Locke Enlightenment Natural Rights Theory

Intellectual Lineage

Radical Whig Tradition Enlightenment

Contemporaries & Peers

Thomas Jefferson Edmund Burke

Minds Influenced

American Political Tradition Freethought

Intellectual Posterity

American Political Tradition Republican Political Thought

Discussing

Thomas Paine

Ask anything about Thomas Paine — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.

person1770s-1809

Thomas Paine

Disciplines:

journalism

political theory

Summary

Core Contribution

Key Spikes & Highlights

Died in poverty and near-obscurity in New York in 1809 — the man who had helped create two republics (American and French) was too deist for American religious culture and too radical for the established order.
His bones were dug up after his death by William Cobbett, who intended to bring them to England for a monument — Cobbett died before doing so and Paine's remains were lost.

Notable Works & Achievements

Common Sense

The American Crisis

Rights of Man

The Age of Reason

Historical Influences

Locke Enlightenment Natural Rights Theory

Intellectual Lineage

Radical Whig Tradition Enlightenment

Contemporaries & Peers

Thomas Jefferson Edmund Burke

Minds Influenced

American Political Tradition Freethought

Intellectual Posterity

American Political Tradition Republican Political Thought

Discussing

Thomas Paine

Ask anything about Thomas Paine — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.