Paine and Jefferson in the Age of Revolutions

The enormous popularity of his pamphlet Common Sense madeThomas Paine one of the best-known patriots during the early years of American independence. Hissubsequent service with the Continental Army, his publication of The AmericanCrisis (1776-83), and his work with Pennsylvania's revolutionary governmentconsolidated his reputation as one of the foremost radicals of the Revolution. Thereafter, Painespent almost fifteen years in Europe, where he was actively involved in the French Revolution,articulating his radical social, economic, and political vision in major publications such asThe Rights of Man (1791), The Age of Reason (1793-1807),and Agrarian Justice (1797). Such radicalism was deemed a danger to the state inhis native Britain, where Paine was found guilty of sedition, and even in the United States some ofPaine's later publications lost him a great deal of his early popularity.Yet despite this legacy, historians have paid less attention to Paine than to other leadingPatriots such as Thomas Jefferson. In Paine and Jefferson in the Age ofRevolutions, editors Simon Newman and Peter Onuf present a collection of essays thatexamine how the reputations of two figures whose outlooks were so similar have had such differenttrajectories.