THOMAS PAINE: Liberator

Paine's own creed was this: ""Where Liberty is not, there is my country, which is life exemplified."" Crusader, pamphleteer, one who inflamed men to passion but did not originate the flame, his was a life tremendous in influence, rather tragic in personal aspects. He came to America from England, poor, alone, Jack of all trades. He edited a magazine -- issued Common Sense, which became the bible of the revolution. Then he tried -- in vain -- to cement unity between France and America, and wrote The Rights of Man, the creed for world revolution. In spite of imprisonment by the Jacobins, he loved France, spent his later years there, and gave form to his deistic theories in Age of Reason. Penniless, ill, persecuted in America -- he still stood for free man. The book is an analysis of his contribution rather than a personal biography. Scholarly -- produces new evidence regarding Paine and his work.