Common sense and other writings : authoritative texts, contexts, interpretations
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Bibliographic Information
Common sense and other writings : authoritative texts, contexts, interpretations
（Norton critical editions）
W.W. Norton, c2012
1st ed
- : pbk
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Note
Bibliography: p. 291-293
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Thomas Paine's loyalties were with universal and self-evident principles rather than with a particular group or nation, and it is this dimension that informed his most important works. This Norton Critical Edition shows how Paine's fury at the British Empire, including its injustices to South Asians and Africans, shaped his first best seller, Common Sense, and how his direct involvement with the French Revolution pushed his ideas toward a unique form of democratic radicalism. Together with his rejection of organized religion, Paine's radicalism resulted in his being one of the most hated men in both monarchial Britain and republican America.
This volume includes J. M. Opal's introduction, "Thomas Paine and the Revolutionary Enlightenment, 1770s-90s," which provides essential biographical and historical details across three tumultuous decades. Paine's most important works-from Common Sense (1776) through Agrarian Justice (1796)-are reprinted and are accompanied by explanatory annotations.
Supporting materials include a wide range of documents from the turbulent years following the publication of both Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence. These include Pennsylvania's gradual emancipation statute of the 1780s, an ex-slave's impassioned call for revolutionary violence against European imperialists and masters, and a British conservative's witty rejoinder to Paine's vision of a brave new world.
Four major interpretations of Paine's work are provided by Nathan R. Perl-Rosenthal, Robert A. Ferguson, Gary Kates, and Gregory Claeys.
A Selected Bibliography is also included.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Thomas Paine and the Revolutionary Enlightenment, 1770s-1790s The Texts of Common Sense and Other Writings
Common Sense (1776)
The American Crisis #6, October 20, 1778
From Rights of Man, Part First, February 1791
Reasons for Preserving the Life of Louis Capet, January 15, 1793
Shall Louis XVI Have Respite? January 19, 1793
Agrarian Justice (1797) Contexts
[Second Continental Congress] * A Declaration . . . Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms, July 1775
[Pennsylvania General Assembly] * An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, March 1, 1780
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano * From Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species (1787)
Richard Price * A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1789)
James Madison * On Perpetual Peace, February 2, 1792
Will Chip, a Country Carpenter [Hannah More] * Village Politics: Addressed to All the Mechanics, Journeymen, and Day-Labourers, in Great Britain (1793)
George Washington * Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
Interpretations
Robert A. Ferguson * The Commonalities of Common Sense
Nathan R. Perl-Rosenthal * The "Divine Right of Republics": Hebraic Republicanism and the Debate over Kingless Government in Revolutionary America
Gary Kates * From Liberalism to Radicalism: Tom Paine's Rights of Man
Gregory Claeys * From The Origins of the Rights of Labor: Republicanism, Commerce, and the Construction of Modern Social Theory in Britain, 1796-1805
Selected Bibliography
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
