Alexander Radishchev (1749-1802) the first Russian radical and Thomas Paine’s contemporary, was the first to understand Paine’s momentous significance for modern history. Radishchev expressed this view already in the 1870s.
Paine used Common Sense to convince the American colonists that to be fully independent and free, the King and what he stood for had to be discarded. A republican form of government had to replace monarchy and nobility.
Thomas Paine’s Legacy of Equality Read Post »
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.
IN the midst of the controversy over Silas Deane’s negotiations with the French government, the most sensational political scandal of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine brought forth several satirical pieces in verse and prose under a new pseudonym, Comus.
Thomas Paine And Comus Read Post »
THE BRADFORD EDITION, February 14, 1776 Man knows no Master save creating Heaven Or those whom choice and common good ordain. – Thomson. INTRODUCTION Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial
