Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet Common Sense may be, after The Communist Manifesto, the most influential political tract ever written. It galvanised countless Americans living among the Thirteen Colonies, who were then unconvinced by the notion of independence, that breaking from British rule and declaring independence was the best course of […]
Tag: Thomas Paine
A Summary and Analysis of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) After the Declaration of Independence, probably the most important and influential document of the American Revolution was a short pamphlet written not by an American, but by an English writer who had been living in America for less than 15 months. But although his […]
Five Fascinating Facts about Thomas Paine
Five fun facts about Thomas Paine, firebrand of the American War of Independence 1. Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense remains one of the bestselling books in American publishing history. In 1776 alone it is thought to have sold in excess of 100,000 copies. Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense argued for independence for America, and […]
In Celebration of Thomas Paine
We at Interesting Literature felt it was about time we saluted a truly modern man, Thomas Paine (1737-1809). A story from the 1960s shows just how inflammatory this champion of freedom, equality, and independence still is, even in more recent times. In 1964 the mayor of Thetford in Norfolk (Paine’s hometown) […]