"Poor Tom Paine! There he lies; nobody laughs and nobody cries; where he has gone or how he fares; nobody knows and nobody cares." This 19th-century street ditty captures the obscurity of America's least known Founding Father. The author of Common Sense and other influential pamphlets helped spark the American Revolution and the upheaval in France, but earned no lasting fame. Indeed, history buff Theodore Roosevelt dismissed Paine (1737-1809) as "a dirty little atheist," and John Adams cast him off as "a disastrous meteor." Craig Nelson's major biography brings Paine alive in a new way. As Joseph J. Ellis noted, "This is the first book to recover him in his own electrical style...with all the flaws and foibles flaming away amidst the greatness."
Publishers Weekly
Enlightenment thinker Thomas Paine would be pleased with this brisk, intellectually sophisticated study of his life. Nelson (The First Heroes) breezes through Paine's first 37 years, his attention tuned to 1774, when Paine moved from England to Philadelphia, bearing glowing letters of introduction from Benjamin Franklin. It was there that "his real life story would begin" with the writing of the hugely influential Common Sense, which attacked the divine right of kings and advocated American independence. Nelson follows Paine as he heads to Europe in 1787, and charts Paine's ambiguous relationship with the French Revolution. During the Reign of Terror, Paine got to work on The Age of Reason, and Nelson insists that, though his subject has been called an atheist, this work advocated 18th-century deism and was right in step with "mainstream Anglo-American religious discourse" of the era. Nelson concludes with a brief, intriguing discussion of Paine's legacy in the United States. The descriptions of Paine birthday galas in New York and Philadelphia 20 years after his 1809 death are fascinating in fact, an entire chapter could have been devoted to Paine's influence in the Jacksonian era. This volume won't replace Eric Foner's classic Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, but it's a welcome addition. (Sept. 25) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
This book reflects the resurgence of interest in one of the most neglected and controversial Americans in the era of the Founding Fathers. Independent historian Nelson (The First Heroes: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid) includes interesting excursions into topics like medicine, the publishing industry, and, most especially, the intellectual movement that we call the Enlightenment. With a storyteller's gift for the dramatic, Nelson begins with the furtive digging up of Paine's body in a remote American location and its return to England, and he ends with a discussion of the dispersal of Paine's body parts and the recent campaign to locate and reassemble them. Though reliable in its general picture of Paine and his time period, the book is marred by numerous small mistakes. For example, Nelson errs in stating that Henry Clinton was part of the British peace commission sent to America in the spring of 1778, and he mentions that British spy William Bancroft worked in Paris during the American Revolution (that was Edward Bancroft). This book will nonetheless make a good companion piece to Harvey J. Kaye's Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. Recommended for all public libraries. Thomas J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
From the Publisher
"Craig Nelson's lovely new biography provides cogent reasons why the man who wrote Common Sense has often been neglected by the cheerleaders for the American Revolution."
-Los Angeles Times Book Review
"A rewarding new biography . . . as much a primer on the Enlightenment as it is the story of the stay-maker from Thetford-and all the better for it."
-The New Yorker
JUN/JUL 07 - AudioFile
Elementary and secondary school American history courses mention Thomas Paine and his role in the American, French (he could have lost his head many times), and stillborn English Revolutions, but with little depth. This book provides a good look at the man, who was a brilliant, incisive, and principled writer, his most famous work being “Common Sense.” Narrator Paul Hecht approaches the production as if in conversation with listeners—one expects him to call us his "dear listeners" at any moment—sharing with us the personality and accomplishments of a misunderstood grandfather. Hecht's deep, deliberate, carefully modulated, and somberly expressive voice glides through this well-written biography. D.R.W. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
