In 1964, there was political opposition to the erection of Paine’s statue outside King’s House in Thetford, UK which was a gift from the American Thomas Paine Foundation. The controversy led to the foundation of the Thomas Paine Society UK with a goal of promoting a better understanding of the man and his work. The Thomas Paine Society UK became the premier Thomas Paine historical society in the UK. In 2025, the Thomas Paine National Historical Association merged with the Thomas Paine Society UK to form the internationally-focused Thomas Paine Historical Association.
The impressions we have of fighting in the American War of Independence are largely gathered from romanticised films made in Hollywood. However, the times of Thomas Paine are more remote and perspective often focuses more accurately on individuals and events.
Thomas Paine and the Care Of The Continental Army Read Post »
THIS book unquestionably establishes its author, who is a Vice-President of the TPS, as the world’s leading Paine scholar. It is a comprehensive examination of the intellectual content of Paine’s works as a whole.
This well produced book brings together the most important of Spence’s political writings, though consideration of his attempts to promote some of his ideas through the use of political tokens is largely ignored.
BOOK REVIEW: The Political Works Of Thomas Spence Read Post »
Basically, like all the greatest writers on liberty, Paine was a humanitarian. Freedom, in Paine’s view, could not be dissociated from political morality, and he sounded a warning note which still carries a message.
The traditional way of looking at Paine as an Enlightenment political propagandist or as a Newtonian Deist is not explicit enough to distinguish him from others. Nor do these descriptions of Paine enable one to explain why Paine appeals to such a variety of radical, liberal and even conservative causes.
Many Americans are ambivalent about Thomas Paine, the 18th century British-American author and propagandist, for all kinds of reasons; he’s too radical in a modern way, perhaps. Paul O’Dwyer is not one of them.
Thus the weight of the evidence that we have at the moment suggests quite strongly, if not conclusively, that the “A Forester” articles of 1772-3, as well as those of 1787-9, were written by the Reverend Richard Michell, and that they were not written by Thomas Paine.
The propaganda directed against Paine, linked as it was with efforts to counteract early favourable reactions to the French Revolution, included in its scope misrepresentations of earlier periods when the continuous struggle for human rights similarly found expression in public unrest.
Paine’s fame as a writer on social, political and religious themes plus his controversial activities, has tended to obscure his passionate interest in scientific matters. Paine was perhaps the first person to recognise the critical implications of the growing stream of scientific discoveries.
Paine, I am sure, was never “just” an exciseman, a teacher, staymaker, or storekeeper. His mental activity, interest in science, government and human relations, implied that there was far more bigger and grander things for him to do.
Paine’s Rights of Man was “the Koran” of Belfast, Theobald Wolfe Tone learned in October 1791 when he went north from Dublin to found the first Society of United Irishmen. Edmund Burke, an Irishman, lost the loyalty of his radical countrymen to Paine.
Even among the students of social movements there is a wide measure of ignorance as to the extent and influence of the Freethought movement particularly in the second half of the 19th century.
BOOK REVIEW: Freethought In The United States, A Descriptive Bibliography Read Post »
