Without Paine's Common Sense, the United States probably would never have come into existence.
Paine mixed appeals to logic (as the title suggests) with a stirring sense of moral and spiritual obligation. The combination made Common Sense perhaps the best-selling book in American history, and helped bring the new nation into being.
O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted 'round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.
Common Sense[1] is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776,[2] at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation.
It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history.[3] As of 2006, it remains the all-time best-selling American title and is still in print today.[4]
Without Paine's Common Sense, the United States probably would never have come into existence.
Paine mixed appeals to logic (as the title suggests) with a stirring sense of moral and spiritual obligation. The combination made Common Sense perhaps the best-selling book in American history, and helped bring the new nation into being.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense (I hear your complaints, but not everything at Wikipedia is corrupted):