Common Sense (John Harvard Library): 123 (The John Harvard Library) - Softcover

Paine, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674051165 ISBN 13: 9780674051164

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2010

Synopsis

"In Common Sense a writer found his moment to change the world," Alan Taylor writes in his introduction. When Paine's attack on the British mixed constitution of kings, lords, and commons was published in January 1776, fighting had already erupted between British troops and American Patriots, but many Patriots still balked at seeking independence. "By discrediting the sovereign king," Taylor argues, "Paine made independence thinkable-as he relocated sovereignty from a royal family to the collective people of a republic." Paine's American readers could conclude that they stood at "the center of a new and coming world of utopian potential." The John Harvard Library edition follows the text of the expanded edition printed by the shop of Benjamin Towne for W. and T. Bradford of Philadelphia.

About this title

Review:

"No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style; in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple unassuming language." --Thomas Jefferson

No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style; in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple unassuming language. Thomas Jefferson"

From the Back Cover:

"I know not whether any man in the world", wrote John Adams in 1805, "has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine". The impassioned democratic voice of the Age of Revolution, Paine wrote for his mass audience with vigor, clarity, and "common sense". This is the first major new edition of his work in 50 years, and the most comprehensive single-volume collection of his writings available. Emphasizing Paine's American career, it brings together his best-known works - Common Sense, The American Crisis, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason - along with scores of letters, articles, and pamphlets. Paine came to America in 1774 at age 37 after a life of obscurity and failure in England. Within 14 months he published Common Sense, the most influential pamphlet of the American Revolution and began a career that would see him prosecuted in England, imprisoned and nearly executed in France, and hailed and reviled in the American nation he helped create. In Common Sense Paine set forth an inspiring vision of an independent America as an asylum for freedom and an example of popular self-government in a world oppressed by despotism and hereditary privilege. The American Crisis, begun during "the times that try men's souls" in 1776, is a masterpiece of popular pamphleteering in which Paine vividly reports current developments, taunts and ridicules British adversaries, and enjoins his readers to remember the immense stakes of their struggle. Among the many other items included in the volume are the combative "Forester" letters, written in reply to a Tory critic of Common Sense, and several pieces concerning the French Revolution, including an incisiveargument against executing Louis XVI.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0674051165
• ISBN 13: 9780674051164
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 92