Tom Paine's America

Tom Paine's America PDF Author: Seth Cotlar
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813931061
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Tom Paine’s America explores the vibrant, transatlantic traffic in people, ideas, and texts that profoundly shaped American political debate in the 1790s. In 1789, when the Federal Constitution was ratified, "democracy" was a controversial term that very few Americans used to describe their new political system. That changed when the French Revolution—and the wave of democratic radicalism that it touched off around the Atlantic World—inspired a growing number of Americans to imagine and advocate for a wide range of political and social reforms that they proudly called "democratic." One of the figureheads of this new international movement was Tom Paine, the author of Common Sense. Although Paine spent the 1790s in Europe, his increasingly radical political writings from that decade were wildly popular in America. A cohort of democratic printers, newspaper editors, and booksellers stoked the fires of American politics by importing a flood of information and ideas from revolutionary Europe. Inspired by what they were learning from their contemporaries around the world, the evolving democratic opposition in America pushed their fellow citizens to consider a wide range of radical ideas regarding racial equality, economic justice, cosmopolitan conceptions of citizenship, and the construction of more literally democratic polities. In Europe such ideas quickly fell victim to a counter-Revolutionary backlash that defined Painite democracy as dangerous Jacobinism, and the story was much the same in America’s late 1790s. The Democratic Party that won the national election of 1800 was, ironically, the beneficiary of this backlash; for they were able to position themselves as the advocates of a more moderate, safe vision of democracy that differentiated itself from the supposedly aristocratic Federalists to their right and the dangerously democratic Painite Jacobins to their left.

Tom Paine's America

Tom Paine's America PDF Author: Seth Cotlar
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN: 0813931061
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Tom Paine’s America explores the vibrant, transatlantic traffic in people, ideas, and texts that profoundly shaped American political debate in the 1790s. In 1789, when the Federal Constitution was ratified, "democracy" was a controversial term that very few Americans used to describe their new political system. That changed when the French Revolution—and the wave of democratic radicalism that it touched off around the Atlantic World—inspired a growing number of Americans to imagine and advocate for a wide range of political and social reforms that they proudly called "democratic." One of the figureheads of this new international movement was Tom Paine, the author of Common Sense. Although Paine spent the 1790s in Europe, his increasingly radical political writings from that decade were wildly popular in America. A cohort of democratic printers, newspaper editors, and booksellers stoked the fires of American politics by importing a flood of information and ideas from revolutionary Europe. Inspired by what they were learning from their contemporaries around the world, the evolving democratic opposition in America pushed their fellow citizens to consider a wide range of radical ideas regarding racial equality, economic justice, cosmopolitan conceptions of citizenship, and the construction of more literally democratic polities. In Europe such ideas quickly fell victim to a counter-Revolutionary backlash that defined Painite democracy as dangerous Jacobinism, and the story was much the same in America’s late 1790s. The Democratic Party that won the national election of 1800 was, ironically, the beneficiary of this backlash; for they were able to position themselves as the advocates of a more moderate, safe vision of democracy that differentiated itself from the supposedly aristocratic Federalists to their right and the dangerously democratic Painite Jacobins to their left.

Tom Paine and Revolutionary America

Tom Paine and Revolutionary America PDF Author: Eric Foner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195174861
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
Since its publication in 1976, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America hasbeen recognized as a classic study of the career of the foremost politicalpamphleteer of the Age of Revolution, and a model of how to integrate thepolitical, intellectual, and social history of the struggle for Americanindependence.Foner skillfully brings together an account of Paine's remarkable career witha careful examination of the social worlds within which he operated, in GreatBritain, France, and especially the United States. He explores Paine's politicaland social ideas and the way he popularized them by pioneering a new form ofpolitical writing, using simple, direct language and addressing himself to areading public far broader than previous writers had commanded. He shows whichof Paine's views remained essentially fixed throughout his career, whiledirecting attention to the ways his stance on social questions evolved under thepressure of events. This enduring work makes clear the tremendous impact Paine'swriting exerted on the American Revolution, and suggests why he failed to have asimilar impact during his career in revolutionary France. And it offers newinsights into the nature and internal tensions of the republican outlook thathelped to shape the Revolution.In a new preface, Foner discusses the origins of this book and the influencesof the 1960s and 1970s on its writing. He also looks at how Paine has beenadopted by scholars and politicians of many stripes, and has even been calledthe patron saint of the Internet.

Thomas Paine and the Promise of America

Thomas Paine and the Promise of America PDF Author: Harvey J. Kaye
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 0374707065
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 462

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Book Description
This acclaimed biography “provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of [the Founding Father’s] controversial reputation” (Joseph J. Ellis, The New York Times Book Review). After leaving London for Philadelphia in 1774, Thomas Paine became one of the most influential political writers of the modern world and the greatest radical of a radical age. Through writings like Common Sense, he not only turned America’s colonial rebellion into a revolutionary war but, as Harvey J. Kaye demonstrates, articulated an American identity charged with exceptional purpose and promise. Thomas Paine and the Promise of America fiercely traces the revolutionary spirit that runs through American history—and demonstrates how that spirit is rooted in Paine’s legacy. With passion and wit, Kaye shows how Paine turned Americans into radicals—and how we have remained radicals ever since.

Common Sense

Common Sense PDF Author: Thomas Paine
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description


Tom Paine

Tom Paine PDF Author: John Keane
Publisher: Open Road + Grove/Atlantic
ISBN: 0802199534
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 855

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Book Description
“It is hard to imagine this magnificent biography ever being superseded . . . It is a stylish, splendidly erudite work.” —Terry Eagleton, The Guardian “More than any other public figure of the eighteenth century, Tom Paine strikes our times like a trumpet blast from a distant world.” So begins John Keane’s magnificent and award-winning (the Fraunces Tavern Book Award) biography of one of democracy’s greatest champions. Among friends and enemies alike, Paine earned a reputation as a notorious pamphleteer, one of the greatest political figures of his day, and the author of three bestselling books, Common Sense, Rights of Man, and The Age of Reason. Setting his compelling narrative against a vivid social backdrop of prerevolutionary America and the French Revolution, John Keane melds together the public and the shadowy private sides of Paine’s life in a remarkable piece of scholarship. This is the definitive biography of a man whose life and work profoundly shaped the modern age. “[A] richly detailed . . . disciplined labor of scholarship and love, an exemplar of the rewards of a gargantuan effort at historical research. . . . In short, buy it; it’s definitive.” —Library Journal

Citizen Tom Paine

Citizen Tom Paine PDF Author: Howard Fast
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453234829
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
The New York Times bestseller that’s “so glowingly human a picture of Tom Paine and America in the revolutionary days” (The New York Herald). Thomas Paine’s voice rang in the ears of eighteenth-century revolutionaries from America to France to England. He was friend to luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and William Wordsworth. His pamphlets extolling democracy sold in the millions. Yet he died a forgotten man, isolated by his rough manners, idealistic zeal, and unwillingness to compromise. Howard Fast’s brilliant portrait brings Paine to the fore as a legend of American history, and provides readers with a gripping narrative of modern democracy’s earliest days in America and Europe. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Howard Fast including rare photos from the author’s estate.

These Are the Times That Try Men's Souls America - Then and Now in the Words of Tom Paine

These Are the Times That Try Men's Souls America - Then and Now in the Words of Tom Paine PDF Author: John Armor
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781457535147
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Thomas Paine is rightly referred to as the "forgotten" Founder. We remember Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, but too often overlook the first person to write the momentous words: "the United States of America." With his first two books, Common Sense and The American Crisis, Paine helped a majority of American colonists to think of themselves, for the first time, as citizens of new nation-the United States of America. And it was Paine who, through the power of the pen, encouraged the colonists to declare their independence; to fight for their freedom and ultimately win the Revolutionary War. The title of this new and timely work, These Are the Times that Try Men's Souls, edited by John Armor, is arguably the most powerful single sentence Paine ever wrote. Without the first victory won by General Washington's troops at Trenton, the day after Christmas in 1776, the cause of America would have been lost. To inspire his troops, General Washington had Chapter I of Paine's latest work read to his troops just before they set out in a snow storm to cross the Delaware at night to launch their attack on Trenton-an historic victory that changed the entire outcome of America's struggle for Independence. Thomas Paine's words have not lost their power with the passage of over two centuries. Paine's writing about dictators who were called kings is just as applicable today, although his "kings" are now replaced by Presidents, Generals, and Prime Ministers. These Are the Times that Try Men's Souls eloquently connects the life and times of Thomas Paine with the modern crises facing America. We, the American people, once again face threats to our freedom and liberty; political and economic events that threaten the very existence of the United States. These are the times that try men's souls.

Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence

Thomas Paine and the Clarion Call for American Independence PDF Author: Harlow Giles Unger
Publisher: Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0306921944
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
From New York Times bestselling author and Founding Fathers' biographer Harlow Giles Unger comes the astonishing biography of the man whose pen set America ablaze, inspiring its revolution, and whose ideas about reason and religion continue to try men's souls. Thomas Paine's words were like no others in history: they leaped off the page, inspiring readers to change their lives, their governments, their kings, and even their gods. In an age when spoken and written words were the only forms of communication, Paine's aroused men to action like no one else. The most widely read political writer of his generation, he proved to be more than a century ahead of his time, conceiving and demanding unheard-of social reforms that are now integral elements of modern republican societies. Among them were government subsidies for the poor, universal housing and education, pre- and post-natal care for women, and universal social security. An Englishman who emigrated to the American colonies, he formed close friendships with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, and his ideas helped shape the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. However, the world turned against Paine in his later years. While his earlier works, Common Sense and Rights of Man, attacked the political and social status quo here on earth, The Age of Reason attacked the status quo of the hereafter. Former friends shunned him, and the man America had hailed as the muse of the American Revolution died alone and forgotten. Packed with action and intrigue, soldiers and spies, politics and perfidy, Unger's Thomas Paine is a much-needed new look at a defining figure.

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man PDF Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 9780802143839
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" has been celebrated, criticized, maligned, suppressed, and co-opted, but Hitchens marvels at its forethought and revels in its contentiousness. In this book, he demonstrates how Paine's book forms the philosophical cornerstone of the U.S.

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine PDF Author: Craig Nelson
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780143112389
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
A fresh new look at the Enlightenment intellectual who became the most controversial of America's founding fathers Despite his being a founder of both the United States and the French Republic, the creator of the phrase "United States of America," and the author of Common Sense, Thomas Paine is the least well known of America's founding fathers. This edifying biography by Craig Nelson traces Paine's path from his years as a London mechanic, through his emergence as the voice of revolutionary fervor on two continents, to his final days in the throes of dementia. By acquainting us as never before with this complex and combative genius, Nelson rescues a giant from obscurity-and gives us a fascinating work of history.