Common Sense: and Related Writings

Thomas Paine

Nov 2018 · Sold by Macmillan Higher Education

About this ebook

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is one of the most important and often assigned primary documents of the Revolutionary era. This edition of the pamphlet is unique in its inclusion of selections from Paine’s other writings from 1775 and 1776 — additional essays that contextualize Common Sense and provide unusual insight on both the writer and the cause for which he wrote. The volume introduction includes coverage of Paine’s childhood and early adult years in England, arguing for the significance of personal experience, environment, career, and religion in understanding Paine’s influential political writings. The volume also includes a glossary, a chronology, 12 illustrations, a selected bibliography, and questions for consideration.

About the author

Thomas P. Slaughter is Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of three prize-winning books: The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (1986); Bloody Dawn: The Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North (1991); and The Natures of John and William Bartram (1996). He also edited the Library of America edition of The Writings of William Bartram (1996). His books have won the National Historical Society Book Prize, the American Revolution Round Table Award, the Society of the Cincinnati Award, and the New Jersey Council for the Humanities Distinguished Author Award. He is a former fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center. He is currently writing two books, Vision Quest: Lewis and Clarks Search for the Known and The Snake in the Garden and Snakes in the Grass: History and Culture in Early America.