Rights of Man (Classics of World Literature) - Softcover

Paine, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853264679 ISBN 13: 9781853264672

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions, 1996

Synopsis

This Wordsworth Edition includes an exclusive Introduction by Derek Matravers.

Rights of Man is a classic statement of the belief in humanity's potential to change the world for the better. Published as a reply to Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, it differs from that great work in every relevant respect. Where Burke uses the language of the governing classes, Paine writes with the vigour of a self-taught mast-maker and exciseman. With passionate and rapier wit, Paine challenges Burke's assertion that society cannot be judged by rational standards and found wanting.

Rights of Man contains a fully-costed budget, advocating measures such as free education, old age pensions, welfare benefits and child allowance over 100 years before these things were introduced in Britain. It remains a compelling manifesto for social change.

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Review:

Paine's book-length essay in political philosophy is primarily a polemic aimed at Edmund Burke's 1790 'Reflections on the French Revolution', which criticised that revolt as savage and illegal. David Rintoul narrates it as a polemic, sounding by turns coldly angry, cuttingly sarcastic, and excitedly partisan, as well as reasonable when Paine expresses his approval for the revolutions in America and France. Paine's elegantly clear writing, though aimed at the common man demands thought and attention; Rontoul's precise, animated, articulate reading helps the listener follow it. Though Paine was wrong about the nature of the French Revolution and the incorruptibility of republics, his ideas about the rights and freedoms of citizens are still germane--and still radical. Rintoul delivers them with intelligent passion. --Audio File 2008

He gives Edmund Burke a rich plummy reading. Paine's voice is incisive and direct. Although some of the text is dry (the section on finances, for example), most is filled with reason, logic and irony. These are eternal words of wisdom from a man of principle. Today's politicians should read them again and again. --soundcommentary.com

About the Author:

Thomas Paine (February 9, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was an English and American political activist, philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary. As the author of the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, he inspired the rebels in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. Born in Thetford, England, in the county of Norfolk, he emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. Virtually every rebel read (or listened to a reading of) his powerful pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the best-selling American title which crystallized the rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain. His The American Crisis (1776–83) was 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 1853264679
• ISBN 13: 9781853264672
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240