Customer Reviews

Rights of Man and Common Sense (Everyman's Library)

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When I write Liberal I mean it in the traditional sense -- We're all liberals (free men/women) in America.

Before Common Sense, the American revolution was something that the elites talked about and academics thought about but after the publishing of Common Sense, every American of his time found himself with a deep fire in his heart and a profound love and understanding for inalienable human rights and how it utterly made zero sense for for there to be Kings and Queens on earth and how utterly dispicable it was to be ruled under such terms. It made us want to be free!

Common Sense set the American landscape on Rhetorical Fire. Deep concepts from such people as Locke and Brewster and all of these obscure thinkers bubbled up and were made utterly REAL by the firey words of Thomas Paine's pamphlet.

As relevant as back then, Common Sense is a must read book for every American today. If you wonder what it means to be an American, what it truly means to be an American regardless of race, color, creed, or anything -- read Thomas Paine's Common Sense - you will understand how the divine right of kings is flawed and how we must care for and govern ourselves on earth by rule of law and rule of human and how we must cherish, protect, and be ready to even fight and die for that idea and how living in any other state is not living at all.

Its a fascinating read. The second book Rights of Man is also very interesting but was targetted more at the French Revolution than at the American Public. Definitely worth reading but it's Common Sense that makes every member of government who has ever overextended his power or felt that government and the State as superior to the people -- Common Sense makes all of those people quiver in fear. Read it, and know what it means to be an American, the idea of America. It's that profound and thankfully, its a short read.

I like this binding because its priced right and very sturdy. It's not pretentious, everyone can afford it - like Thomas Paine would have wanted it. Its a regular sized book when you combine Common Sense with Rights of Man it forms a nice book about 1.5 inches thick....and if Thomas Paine had lived today I am 100% certain that he would have titled it "Rights of People." This book looks great in a library. Comes with a dust jacket but the book is hardbound woven cloth - nice.

If you're contemplating Thomas Paine, you probably already know what I'm talking about - if you don't, take a read.

Anyone who wishes to understand American History, namely the Revolution, needs to read this book. These essays were crutial in the development of the revolutionary movement in America. Thomas Paine is a keynote figure in this time period and helped the American cause.

Let us, for a moment, forget the historical and literary importance of Right of Man and Common Sense. What if this book had just been published today? Would it still be worth reading? The answer is an unequival yes.

Althought many parts of this deal with specific issues of Paine's time (especially Rights of Man), even after two centuries, the writings of Thomas Paine are able to stoke the fires of liberty in the soul of the reader with their passion, their fierce logic and their unexpected humor.

Rights of Man comprises two long volumes written by Paine in response to English criticism of the French revolution. Although much that he says is ironic in light of events that occured after he penned these volumes, you can see the hope that the Revolution produced. He breaks government down to basic principles, pointing out the needs that government fulfills and the method by which they should be constructed. It is thought-provoking, even in the modern day and will make you look on politics of our own time with a new light. Rights of Man does drag a bit when Paine begins repeating himself, but it remains interesting and though-provoking.

But Common Sense is the real treat. The pamplet that set a continent on fire is -- this was a surprise -- a thrill to read. I found myself actually laughing at Paine's sarcasm and satire -- his way of taking monarchy and absolutism and exposing them for the ridiculuous constructions that they are.

Any student of history should read these volumes for their portrayal of late 18th century geopolitics. But you will find them to be unexpectedly entertaining.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of the French Revolution. Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was the consummate revolutionary and a daring adventurer. Not only was he an important figure in the American Revolution, but he also traveled to France in 1791 to give that revolution a push. Paine traveled from England, just in time to stoke the flames of the revolution with his pamphlet "Common Sense," in January 1776. To call Common Sense a sensation in the colonies is actually a bit of an understatement. It was an unparallel sensation and monumental work of Enlightenment rhetoric that quickly fanned the flames of rebellion throughout the colonies. In four months, over 120,000 copies were printed in the colonies--over 500,000 copies by years end. No other pamphlet printed in seventeenth century America came close to its success. Most importantly, Common Sense served to get the colonial patriots to drop their fear of open rebellion, and also emboldened those delegates who favored declaring independence from Britain. The delegates now had the confidence that a large segment of the colonists would support rebellion. Similar to the Declaration of Independence, the philosophical ideas in Common Sense are primarily from the English philosopher, John Locke (1632-1704). The most moving quote from the pamphlet became quite prophetic, when one considers the impact it ultimately had on the delegates in the congress, the drafting of the Declaration of Independence, and on the world. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again."

Paine, the consummate revolutionary, decided to help make the world over again in France after the American Revolution. For Thomas Paine, the eighteenth century was the Age of Enlightenment because for the first time humankind was throwing off the millstones of religious dogmatism and political despotism. Paine essentially believed that the rights of man encompassed, "...all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights of acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others."

Paine's "Rights of Man" was an eloquent yet blistering rebuttal to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France. Paine got right to the crux of the disagreement he had with Burke when he admonished him for his argument that governmental enactments of previous generations had the force and authority to bind citizens for all time. An example that Burke used was the English Parliament of 1688, which he praised as a model of the type of reform French citizens should emulate. Paine's answer was swift and cutting "Radical Enlightenment" reason. "Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies." Paine also took Burke to task for his narrow understanding of French socio-political and economic problems leading up to 1789. Unlike Burke, Paine understood that the French Revolution, unlike the others that took place in Europe, was not just a revolt against the king. "Between the monarchy, the parliament, and the church, there was a rivalship of despotism, besides the feudal despotism operating locally, and the ministerial despotism operating everywhere." Thus, what Paine witnessed, Alexis de Tocqueville and Georges Lefebvre observed, agreed with, and commented on, in their history's years later. The institutions that Burke defended in his Reflections, such as the nobility, Church, and monarchial rule, all became "fodder" for Paine's "grist mill" in his defense of France's new constitution.

Paine abhorred the institution of nobility and supported its dissolution for several reasons. "Because the idea of hereditary legislation is as inconsistent...and absurd as an hereditary mathematician....Because it is continuing the uncivilized principle of governments founded in conquest, and the base idea of man having property over man, and governing him by personal right." No friend to tradition, Paine took Burke to task for defending the notion of, "...hereditary rights, and hereditary succession, and that a Nation has not a right to form a Government for itself." Paine defended the French constitution's eradication of tithes to the Catholic Church and it "...hath abolished or renounced Toleration, and Intolerance also, hath established UNIVERSAL RIGHT OF CONSCIENCE." Finally, Paine unleashed a most scathing attack against Burke's suggestion that France should reform its absolutist monarchy into a benign form of constitutional monarchy similar to what Britain enjoyed. "All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. It occasionally puts children over men, and the conceits of nonage over wisdom and experience. In short, we cannot conceive a more ridiculous figure of government, than hereditary succession."

Thus, Paine's Radical Enlightenment polemic, which sold more than 200,000 copies throughout Europe, was his reasoned and articulate project towards developing a better world. Consequently, there is no doubt that Paine, whose Radical Enlightenment pen proved to be "mightier than the sword" of despotism both in the American and French Revolutions, understood the importance of the nurturing relationship that Enlightenment philosophes had on the French Revolution. "But all those writings and many others had their weight; and by the different manner in which they treated the subject of government...by their moral maxims and systems of economy, readers of every class met with something to their taste."

Paine is a great wordsmith and is the most articulate revolutionary writer you will ever read. Imagine if Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Mao, Guevara, or Castro had possessed Paine's articulate argumentative ability, their revolutions might have made more of a lasting impact. Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and the French Revolution.

There once was a great country, whose Kings and Queens, decided by birth and not merit, were crowned by the Holy Church, which was wedded to the State. The people were told by this twin power what to believe and how to go about believing. A group of men were fortuitous and brave enough to break free, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson among them, who sought to create a new and more perfect union which would be symbolized by the unfinished pyramid, whose capstone replaced an earthly King for the Eye of Providence, God. God would be the spiritual King of this great Nation and no earthly King or Aristocracy would rule it. The people would be set free. Free to live by their own lights under God, worshiping Him as they saw fit. Given this new Liberty, they would help others in securing it, regardless of Creed. Further, to insure these people would live in Freedom, and the new found country would not fall into the same trap it's mother country had, the State was separated from the Church, of which the New Union had no official one, to insure in this New 'RE' PUPLIC of people, there would no longer be a Church-State controlliing the lives of it's subjects. Rather, the people would ELECT their leaders and worship as they saw fit. The power decidedly shifted from the political leader and heads of Church to the people...which is what the American Revolution was all about.

The truth is the truth, and history can not be changed to fit one piticular political parties' advantage. The concept of Mr. Paine's message is so simple in nature, that it is almost sad that a group of people could not be able to understand it/or want to understand it. It's a great read!

thomas paine's common sense will show how bad a socialist/communist type of govt. really is.every student should read this to see how we got to be the greatest nation on earth, and how bad this road to a socialist america that we are on will be the downfall of our republic.