The Beacon is the Thomas Paine Historical Association’s bi-monthly journal that touches upon topics that are relevant to today’s ever-changing political climate. Studies in Thomas Paine is a peer-reviewed publication that focuses on one specific topic and is written by a leading historian in the field. The Thomas Paine Society, UK
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- Thomas Paine: Founder of Modern Democracy: Part 2
Thomas Paine’s first principles built the structure of democracy. The mechanisms central to Paine’s political theories are rooted in his ideology of first principles. The basic foundation of these principles is equality, and as a direct result, justice. If equality is practiced, then people share equal justice. - Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Paine
Dreiser, like Paine, viewed oligarchy as a serious threat to ordinary Americans, who were sacrificed to rich overlords by a complicit government. Dreiser, like Paine, urged populist action: “We want a government for all the people! No enormous wealth in private hands!” - Thomas Paine: Founder of Modern Democracy: Part 1
Thomas Paine is the founder of modern democracy. In word and deed, he crafted the democratic movement in three countries, and it spread on its own around the world. As a result, Paine was slandered, attacked and marginalized for 200 years. - Why Thomas Paine is so Fascinating to Me
A Canadian who grew up outside Toronto, I first heard of Thomas Paine very briefly in high school when my Canadian history classes spent as little time as possible on the American Revolution. That was more about the Loyalist expulsion to Canada than the achievement of American independence. - Where have you gone, Thomas Paine?
Paine says that aristocracy and oligarchy should be rejected. Likewise, Paine says the worst kind of government is one where decisions are subject to the passions of a single individual. I advise those in the White House to study Paine’s writings
- The Bonnevilles: Thomas Paine’s “Family” Part One:
Paine’s deep relationship with the Bonnevilles lasted for more than 15 years. This essay studies Paine’s time with the Bonnevilles in Paris during the six years he lived with them, from 1797 to 1802, as Napoleon Bonaparte began his ascent to power and U.S.-France relationships floundered. - Elihu Palmer: A Forgotten Voice of Deism
Elihu Palmer (1764-1806) was a little-known freethinker who, even after losing his vision, remained active in the intellectual debates of his time. Palmer emerged as one of the leading exponents of deism in the First American Republic. Drawing upon thinkers such as Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and Jefferson. - Thomas Paine and the French Revolution
Paine—as an English revolutionary and an actor, witness, and interpreter of the Age of Revolutions—developed a democratic vision during the period of the Convention initiated on 9 Thermidor (1794-1795) that distanced him from both Jacobin formulations and practices, and from legislations and speeches by Thermidorian deputies. - The Author Attribution of “African Slavery in America”
It is most probable that Paine did not write “African Slavery in America” based on a lack of evidence, on the language used in the essay, and on our computer analysis of the text. - The Mysteries of Paine’s Beliefs in Providence
In Paine’s view, organized religions marketed unreliable hearsay piled on hearsay as “revelations” that are, by definition, based on faith rather than evidence. Carefully observing nature, he rejected nearly everything propounded by organized religions as antithetical to rational analysis, retaining from Biblical accounts only what was discernable through observation.
- BOOK REVIEW: A Political Biography Of Thomas Paine
Naturally this book invites comparison with previous biographical studies, in particular the most recent. It bears out well in relationship to them. What stands out in this new work is its detailed coverage of Paine’s career and his comprehensive treatment of the controversies and issues Paine addressed. - Thomas Paine, the Rights of Man and the Rights of the Freeborn Englishman
Thompson’s interpretation underlined Paine’s importance in what was labelled by historians as the ‘Atlantic-Democratic Revolution’. In the 1960s, my undergraduate days, this exercise in comparative history breaking through the constraints of nation state historiography was as fashionable as Thompson’s history from below. - Thomas Paine’s Maternal Grandmother
My conclusion is that the Hustler grandmother referred to by Paine is Frances (or Elizabeth) Hustler, the daughter of Thomas Hustler and granddaughter of Samuel Hustler, both of whom were involved in local politics. It is easy to imagine this familial taste for political affairs having some influence on Paine. - BOOK REVIEW: La Pensee Politique de Thomas Paine en Contexte: Theorie at Pratique
This fundamental contribution to Paine’s political thought, based on a Ph. D thesis at the Sorbonne, deserves to be translated into English so that it becomes available to all Anglophones interested in the subject. - Thomas Paine’s Astronomy
In the first part of The Age of Reason, written during the French Revolution and completed we are told only a matter of hours before his arrest, Paine devotes some pages to a general account of astronomy as an introduction to his ideas on Christian theology.
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