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.
The Bonnevilles: Thomas Paine’s “Family” Part One: Read Post »
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.
Thomas Paine: Founder of Modern Democracy: Part 2 Read Post »
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.
Thomas Paine and the French Revolution Read Post »
I believe it’s no accident that current social beliefs and trends uncannily reflect those in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many Americans still believe that assistance to the poor encourages sloth. Meanwhile, there is little interest in funding public K-12 education or in making higher education more affordable.
Rights of Man is More Relevant Now than Ever Read Post »
Lukin identified the 32 books most often banned worldwide. Two of those books, Rights of Man and The Age of Reason, were authored by Paine. As true from Common Sense forward, governments purporting to support democracy and free speech will resist the radical impact of Paine’s thoughts.
Banning Thomas Paine Read Post »
An incorrigible Europhile for much of my youth, I was not terribly interested in Thomas Paine. The fact that Ronald Reagan was an admirer of Paine didn’t help either. But then I realized that to understand William Blake’s revolutionary sentiment, I had to read Rights of Man
My Discovery and Love of Thomas Paine Read Post »
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, the Rights of Man and the Rights of the Freeborn Englishman Read Post »
Hitches may be a polemical writer but, judging by this performance, is certainly not an effective public speaker, except that his inordinately long and ponderous replies to questions, a technique perfected by many politicians, makes it difficult to challenge his highly controversial views.
‘The Rights Of Man’ Needs ‘An Age Of Reason’ Read Post »
I have gone back to Rights of Man and compared it carefully with The Workers Charter. I would find it hard to believe that this new work, coming on the centenary of Paine’s, was merely coincidence and of no further significance.
Rights Of Man Centenary And The Pope Read Post »
Paine does not refer directly to changes in Poland in Part Two of Rights of Man, but he does state that in contradiction to a hereditary monarchy ‘Poland, through an elective monarchy, has had fewer wars than those which are hereditary’,
Thomas Paine And The Polish Revolution Read Post »
Some time ago, being aware of the approach of the 200 anniversary of the publication of Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, I thought of various ways I could do to arouse interest in Paine and his most enduring and famous work and the republican ideals he espoused.
A Wicked And Seditious Person Read Post »
The author acknowledges Burke to have been a ‘great man’ but one who was ‘scarcely rational about human rights’, who resorts to sneering when he fails to have better of an argument. ‘This man’ concludes the author, ‘must have had a large mental block’.
BOOK REVIEW: Debate Aborted. Burke, Priestley. Paine And The Revolution In France Read Post »
