72 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Most Controversial Founding Father, November 8, 2005
The astonishing revolution that brought forth the American republic seems an unending source of curiosity; in the past year there has been one book after another about the American Revolution itself or about the Founding Fathers who eventually brought a Constitution to cap the Revolution's success. Perhaps we will never tire of examining the start of our nation. Perhaps, as Tom Paine himself wrote, even now "It is yet too soon to write the history of the Revolution." Paine himself has been written out of the Revolution many times by those who could not stand his political or religious principles, but as Harvey J. Kaye shows in _Thomas Paine and the Promise of America_ (Hill and Wang), Paine's authentically radical voice was not only an essential spark to unite the colonists against Britain, but also provided a legacy of inspiration to reformers in the succeeding two centuries.
Kaye's book encompasses two parts, one a brisk biography of Paine, and then a biography of Paine's posthumous life within American history and ideas. It was only in 1774 that Paine, upon the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, crossed the Atlantic to Philadelphia. He was 38 years old, and quickly became a journal editor. He wrote _Common Sense_ anonymously, exhorting his countrymen not only to independence, but to republicanism. He formulated his arguments so that everyone could understand them, and everyone did; _Common Sense_ united and inspired the colonists to a new American cause. He became involved in politics again in France with the storming of the Bastille. He wrote _The Rights of Man_ which exhorted both Frenchmen and Americans to ensure revolutions so complete that slavery would be ended, women would be equals, peace would be enforced by a global union of republics, and church and state would be completely separated. _The Age of Reason_ was his assault on scripture and organized religion as mythologies imposed on humanity by clerics "to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit." He scorned the Bible for its cruelty and its lack of morality, leading antagonists for centuries to berate Paine as an atheist. He was, however, like many of the most famous of the founders, a deist, but he was one who put into book form his distrust of the general religion of his society.
The religious controversy has continued and has been kept alive both by the freethinkers who have claimed Paine as their own and by Christians who not content with hating the facts of Paine's life made up scurrilous lying biographies about him and false legends such as the one about his deathbed recantation of his disbelief. Teddy Roosevelt called him a "filthy little atheist", but he was none of those three. His lack of conventional religious belief has colored how his countrymen have perceived him ever since. Mark Twain and Herman Melville admired him; Lincoln avidly read _The Age of Reason_ and may well have written a deist treatise of his own, but his friends ensured no one else ever saw it. Franklin Roosevelt was the first president since Jefferson to quote Paine by name, in a wartime radio address that included Paine's famous "These are the times that try men's souls" passage. Even President Reagan in his turn was able to quote Paine, but the radicals on the left are the ones who always admired Paine's convictions. A key story here is about the communist Howard Fast, who in 1943 published the historical novel _Citizen Tom Paine_. Paine was thus drawn into the witch hunts, and when Fast was summoned before Congress and refused to name names, he was put into jail in 1950. His book was removed from the public school libraries of New York City, and J. Edgar Hoover sent agents to major libraries instructing them to remove and destroy Fast's works. It was the sort of oppression Paine would have recognized and abhorred. Kaye's book successfully charts the development of Paine's ideas during his life, and the utility and appropriations of his ideas even into our own times.
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26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A delightful read., November 4, 2005
What a great book! It starts out with a nice history of Paine's work during the early years of our Country. Then it follows the influence of his work up to present time. The second part does get tedious at times but the book is still worth reading. Well written, well researched, passionate whether you agree with the interpretation or not. NOT A GOOD BOOK FOR FANS OF CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO :)
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
More than a Biography, June 10, 2006
Although I purchased this book assuming it was a biography of Paine, I discovered it was much more. While the first third of the book is a short, excellent biography, the heart if the book is a study of Paine's influence on American's liberal, progressive, radical movements and even of the Reagan conservative revival. Kaye makes it clear that his sympathies lie with the left and views Reagan's reliance on Paine's words as a highjacking, but despite this bias, the book is an objective analyses of Paine's influence throughout the 230 years of American history. One question, I have often asked is why did the conservative elite of the Colonial Era, who had so much to lose if the Revolution failed, pledge the "their lives, their fortunes and scared honor" to the cause of American Independence? Kaye offers a plausible and logical explanation: the influence of Thomas Paine's pamphlets, most notably "Common Sense.".
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