thomas paine



born: 1737
died: 1809

works:
rights of man(1792)


relationships:
friends:
benjamin franklin
george washington
thomas jefferson
mary wollstonecraft
william godwin
richard price

influences:
hugo grotius
thomas hobbes
samuel von pufendorf
john locke
adam smith
james madison
jean-jacques rousseau

influential on:
karl marx

opponents:
edmund burke
jeremy bentham
karl marx
thomas malthus

enemies:
george III
maximilien de robespierre
sources:
1) rights of man, gregory claeys, hackett, 1992
notes:
- born in england, went to america to work with benjamin franklin out of scientific interest
- common sense was important in the lead-up to the american revolution
- rights of man was written as a pro-revolutionary rebuttal to edmund burke.
- he was charged with libel against the king in order to suppress rights of man (which in terms of sales was, until it was banned, bigger than jesus), which forced him to flee to revolutionary france.
- the government then carried out a "red scare" campaign against paine by spreading propaganda that rights of man rejected the notion of private property.
- was elected to the convention and helped write the french constitution.
- age of reason argued against the christian doctrine of revelation from a deist perspective.
- he was imprisoned by robespierre and nearly executed by the jacobins.
- left france for america after giving up on the french revolution.
- his deist attitudes, however, made him unpopular in america