The Anglo-American writer and political theorist Thomas Paine (1737-1809) boldly spoke out for social and political reforms, and played an active role in the American War of Independence. His great and highly influential pamphlet, Common Sense, published in January 1776, was the first bold, explicit assault on monarchical rule, and the first advocacy of the American colonies' independence from Britain.
Written in clear language, Common Sense laid out how an independent government could be established and controlled by the people, and how rich and poor alike could share equally in privileges and duties. It was Paine's enlightened contention that in order to ensure liberty, no special preferments should be attached to any one religious sect, but that religious diversity should be respected.
Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 (NS February 9, 1737) – June 8, 1809) was an English American author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He has been called "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination."
Born in Thetford, in the English county of Norfolk, Paine immigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 in time to participate in the American Revolution. 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 (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. "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.”
Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), in part a defense of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction in absentia for the crime of seditious libel. Despite not speaking French, he was elected to the French National Convention in 1792. The Girondists regarded him as an ally, so, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December of 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of The Age of Reason (1793–94), his book that advocates deism, promotes reason and freethinking, argues against institutionalized religion and Christian doctrines. He also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income.
In 1802 he returned to America where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity.
人们常说,十八世纪末的拉法耶特是"两个世界的英雄",却遗忘了那个时代更有资格获得这一称号的民主战士--托马斯·潘恩。拉法耶特执剑,潘恩执笔。前者之剑只能联接美国革命、法国革命新旧大陆两个战场,却不能揭示那两场革命之间的内在联系。后者之笔不仅揭示了它们之间的联系...
评分有时他会说出一串精彩的脏话。但更多的时候他让我们发现身陷笑柄。 “专制政体有着如下好处,那就是它们来得十分简单,如果人们受苦受难,他们终会知道他们的灾难时从谁的头脑中产生出来的,也会知道补救的办法,没有形形色色的原因和救苦救难的方法使他们手足无措。' ...
评分因为对美国一直并非太了解,所以不曾对其文化精神方面妄加评论… 毕竟不了解就没有评论权… 我是抱着“看看你们每天耀武扬威到底是以什么为根据的”的态度去看的… 然后发现我这种态度就玷污了这本书… 这本书我个人觉得纯粹是社会学上的…它本身不涉及任何体制之间的孰优孰劣...
评分读完潘恩的《常识》,我先是感觉到思想的伟大,继而又感觉到一丝迷惑。 我觉得《常识》的伟大,在于它如同先知,看到了现代社会的发展趋势。他对于美国独立的构想,对于现代社会的民主发展理念,几乎预言了美国社会的发展轨迹。因此,从这个角度上来,我觉得潘恩的《常识》是十...
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