Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. Common Sense was so influential that John Adams said, 'Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.' His principal contributions were the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American book that advocated colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–83), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. He has been called 'a corset maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination'.īorn in Thetford, England, in the county of Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. As the author of two highly influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, he inspired the Patriots in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. Thomas Paine was an English-American political activist, author, political theorist and revolutionary. It immediately found a receptive audience, heartened Washington's despondent army, and foreshadowed much of the phrasing and substance of the Declaration of Independence. Designed to ignite public opinion against autocratic rule, the pamphlet offered a careful balance between imagination and judgment, and appropriate language and expression to fit the subject. Today, Common Sense remains a landmark document in the struggle for freedom, distinguished not only by Paine's ideas but also by its clear and passionate presentation. Credited by George Washington as having changed the minds of many of his countrymen, the document sold over 500,000 copies within a few months.

On January 10, 1776, he published his pamphlet Common Sense, a persuasive argument for the colonies' political and economic separation from Britain.Ĭommon Sense cites the evils of monarchy, accuses the British government of inflicting economic and social injustices upon the colonies, and points to the absurdity of an island attempting to rule a continent. In 1774, he emigrated to America where, for a time, he helped to edit the Pennsylvania Magazine. Among the most influential authors and reformers of his age, Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was born in England but went on to play an important role in both the American and French Revolutions.

Author of the pamphlet common sense