Customer Reviews

Tom Paine: A Political Life (Grove Great Lives)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I will admit that I was not immediately enamored with this book. The luciferous introduction on Keane's predecessors in Paineite biography was engaging enough, but I found his systematic, nit-picky demolition of each work to be just plain egotistical. In Keane's eyes, each previous biography "failed" or "floundered" for various reasons, thereby opening a window for his own, earth-shattering tome on the subject. Granted, it has become common practice for authors to "justify" their reasons for writing "yet another biography on _______" in the preface of their books, but this sort of self-serving, hypercritical overview left me with a seriously bad taste in my mouth. I seriously worried that the 540 pages that followed would be tinctured with the same sort of pomposity - thankfully that was not the case.

The book is a solid biography, and I can very well see Paine enthusiasts flocking to this as one of the <I>best</I> biographies ever written about him. As this is the <I>only</I> biography of him I've read, I'll reserve my judgment on that question, but I will admit that it is an exceptional study of a peculiar man. What the general public knows of Paine is often just his authorship of <I>Common Sense</I>, but of course there was so much more. He penned not one but three of the best-selling books of the 18th century, and, arguably, he initiated modern political thought on the subject of democratic republicanism. Paine was born an Englishman but for most of his life considered himself a "citizen of the world," which prompted a major change in how we view national citizenship - no so much as a <I>gift</I> from the state, as was the 18th century perception, but rather a <I>promise</I> from it to preserve certain rights indigenous to its people. Yet despite his cosmopolitan leanings, Paine managed to ostracize himself from all three countries in which he declared citizenship - England, France <I>and</I> America - thanks to his revolutionary ideals and his fervent insistence on airing his views publicly regardless of their popularity. He would eventually face public execution in both England and France - the story of his brush with death in <I>La Luxembourg</I> prison during the French Reign of Terror is decidedly spine-tingling - but would survive both to end up back in America, ostracized by the generation that remembered him, and nearly forgotten by the generation that followed.

Keane doesn't devolve into hero-worship, despite several initially-worrisome hyperbolic descriptions of him as "the <I>greatest</I> American revolutionary." Instead, the author deals with each of Paine's failings in a forthright manner. Paine was certainly a man driven by ego, though certainly an ego unaffected by cares for money, power, or public approbation. To put it simply, he just <I>knew</I> he was right, and he would never back down from any of his arguments, regardless of their popularity. Even his most unpopular anti-Christian sentiments displayed in the <I>Age of Reason</I> could not be moved, despite the efforts of many to make him recant on his deathbed. As for Paine's legendary alcoholism, Keane suggests it was just that - a legend. According to Keane, Paine never drank to excess when in social situations. He only drank himself into stupors later on in life when the pain of gout and bedsores became unbearable. This may or may not have been the case - I lean towards may <I>not</I> - but in the end it is of comparatively little importance when calculating the worth of a man whose ideas have arguably shaped many of our own modern ideas on government and civil rights.

All told, the biography earns four stars from me on a scale of five. The rating falls short of the final star more because of style than substance. Keane's prose is certainly readable, and in most cases enjoyable, but it was a bit dry and academic for my tastes in several places. On top of that there was some strange editorial snafus, including several instances of sloppy repetition and an imprecise policy of when and when not to translate from the original French. In one chapter Keane includes an <I>entire paragraph</I> of French extracted from a letter (p. 405), with no accompanying translation, and yet in the next he feels it necessary to include a parenthetical translation of the decidedly uncomplicated <I>Dissertations sur les Premiers Principes de Gouvernement</I> as, surprisingly, or not, "Dissertations on the First Principles of Government" (p. 423).

Regardless of my editorial trifles, the book is strong and well recommended to anyone interested in picking up a book on the life and works of Tom Paine. You'll find his life, in many respects, reads like an adventure novel, and his ideas on government and society are surprisingly, shockingly, modern.

I really enjoyed Keane's biography of Thomas Paine. I thought it was well-written and fast paced. Keane did an excellent job of writing an engaging tale, which read at times like an exciting adventure novel, without sacrificing any of the complexity of the events and historical developments at issue in the book. Keane's book can be enjoyed on several different levels. First of all, for those not particularly steeped in Paine specifically or the Enlightenment Era generally, this book provides an excellent, panoramic introduction and overview. The tale can be enjoyed at a "basic" level because Paine's life was so touching and exciting. He lives a hand-to-mouth existence and was present or a witness at many major historical events including both the American and the French Revolutions. He also nearly died at the guillotine in France! So, enjoy this for the sheer events which the book describes. On another level, the book really put Paine's contributions as a writer, thinker and all-around intellectual into context for me. He played a key, maybe THE key, role in articulating and then subsequently popularizing the ideals for which Americans fought the American Revolution. Paine then went on to write other political tracts which influenced events and the intellectual history of Europe. Here was a man who influenced developments and intellectual history on two continents. I wish he would be remembered more in this country. His life and death will touch the reader - very poignant, very emotionally touching stuff to read. So, enjoy this book as biography, as history (e.g., American Revolution, French Revolution), as intellectual history, as adventure story set in the eighteenth century. It is all of these. Keane has done a fine job. Excellent research, excellent writing style

This is the kind of biography that makes reading history worthwhile. The writing style is intelligent and clear, marshalling innumerable facts and interesting anecdotes. It gives us the full scope of Paine's remarkable life - a man who was one of the intellectual midwives at the birth of the era of democratic revolution.

He fought for free political expression as a citizen of three countries in the throes of revolutionary change: born in England where he fought against monarchy, moved to America where he became a writer of inspirational tracts for independence, and finally, made citizen of France during the violence of the Revolution where he argued, at great risk to himself, to spare the life of King Louis XVI. If his positions seem contradictory they actually reflect a philosophy of consistant political moderation.

Secondly, this biography is a story about the struggle to realize ideas against great odds. Everywhere he went he was fortunate to escape death at the hands of his murderous foes. In spite of these threats, Paine fought tirelessly for his ideals.

Thirdly, the author gives contempory meaning to Paine's goals. Paine was against religious literalism because he saw the adherence to strict doctrine as an obstacle to extablishing a civic society in which people could live together harmoniously.
This position was a cause of much suffering for Paine at the end of his life as his anti-traditional ideas incited deep personal hatred. Without needing to conclude whether he was misguided or not, suffice to say, the difficulty he tried to tackle remains with us today...in the headlines. And I don't think we've come all that far in solving the problem he recognized. That he saw its importance at the inception of modern civic society makes him a visionary of the highest importance worthy of our respect whether we agree with the totality of his ideas or not.

Crackerjack biography of Old Tom (Paine) in the four stages of his life, from his early years in England til Ben Franklin advises him to reach America, the period of _Common Sense_ and the American Revolt, then the _Rights of Man_ and the French Revolution, and finally his return to America, where the reputation of the _Age of Reason_ caught up with him, and his great early popularity was replaced with the jibes of those in a suddenly religious republic, whose liberties were won by more secular sorts (cf. Gordon Wood's book on the Revolution, such as Paine. It is a sad ending to a magnificent tale for a true champion of freedom, one who brought the democratic idea to a republican experiment in constitutions. The phenomenal nature of the sales of his books, whose profits he renounced in the name of his cause, is an episode almost world-historical in its seminal influence. Paine's trek is also a classic snapshot of the 'classic' liberal in his revolutionary phase, and the subtleties of great tomes politcal philosophy seem prefigured in the sheer horse-sense of this man who saw the gist of it all, and somehow at a glance. Witness his instinctive in the spectral course of the French Revolution from the Girondins to the Terror to the dungeons, which he survived. It may finally be that his reputation has recovered at last its nineteenth century shadows where the truest of patriots was consigned.

This is an enjoyable read. Excellent detail, especially about Paine's religious views and his time in France during the Revolution there. Paine nearly lost his head in France, and there were many who would have gladly done the same after he returned to the United States in the early 19th Century. But his impact on his times was quite profound. It is necessary to understand Tom Paine if one wishes to get at the origins and course of the American and French Revolutions. This book is a good means to that important end.

An interesting biography, heavily- if not well- researched. Partisan, but Keane does manage a bit of perspective. The main problems come with the background. There is both too much - I for one could do without the often inaccurate disquisitions on eighteenth-century England - and too much WRONG. Keane seems to think that Britain and America were at war in 1787, and that Adam Smith visited Paris at that time (p.284-5). Hobbes is both more and less than a 'philosopher of counterrrevolution.'
Furthermore, it seems a man only had to bump into Paine for Keane to count him a 'close friend'. What was the extent of Paine's friendship with Goldsmith (this is interesting) and with Burke (very important)?
I get the impression that Keane did all his research for the book and had no grounding in the subject before. But it's an engrossing read for all that.

The greatest contribution of Thomas Paine, who certainly makes for a compelling biography, was his ability to distill pro-American Revolution sentiments to the middle and lower classes of the Colonies. Indeed, his book "Common Sense" and the follow-up, "The Rights of Man," were runaway best-sellers in there time. But, unfortunately for Paine, who came from humble beginnings, he would often find himself poverty stricken as well as the target of a merciless and unfair press. He became a downright pariah after his third great work: "the Age of Reason," in which he basically argued that organized religion was a perversion of a more rational belief in a benign creator, otherwise known as "Deism."

Paine, whose intellect often went in very different directions, found himself in the middle of two revolutions: the American and the French. Paine was late in realizing that the French revolution was aptly described as a "Reign of Terror," and was lucky to return to America with his head intact. To the very end, Paine had his great admirers and his bitter detractors (especially after he attacked George Washingtion in a nasty editorial, written only because Washington seemed to abandon Paine when the latter was imprisoned in France and awaited execution).

Overall, John Keane does a rather nice job detailing the life of this controversial man. My problem with the book is that I believe Keane too frequently injects his personal opinion into the narrative. Also, like many (if not most) biographers, I think Keane overexagerates the importance of his subject. True, Paine's "Common Sense" and "The Rights of Man," were the most accessible and popular books written on that subject, but virtually all of the so-called "Founding Fathers" were writing similar things. Paine's thoughts were hardly original. Even in his radical "Age of Reason," he wasn't "ahead of his time" as Keane repeats, but rather his accomplishment was to crystallize sentiments about religion that many others had already expressed. That being said, "Tom Paine" is certainly a worthwhile read if you're interested in biographies of important historical figures during this time period.

As I read this book, I couldn't help but think, where is the Tom Paine of our time? The insights that Tom Paine had are needed today more than ever.