A former corset maker and tax collector, Thomas Paine arrived in America in 1774 and soon wrote Common Sense, the pamphlet that convinced many colonists to break with Britain. He later defended the French Revolution in Rights of Man and attacked organized religion in The Age of Reason. He died poor and nearly forgotten, but his plain, fiery prose shaped the democratic revolutions of his age.
Core ideas
Government gets its only legitimate power from the people it governs
Hereditary kings and aristocracies are an insult to human equality
Society should give every citizen a fair start, funded by those who own land
The tradition: Radical republican
Radical republicanism wants government without kings or privileges, based on equal natural rights. Paine is its great popular writer, the man who turned revolutionary ideas into language anyone could read.
