The transatlantic republican : : Thomas Paine and the age of revolutions / / Bernard Vincent.

• Superior document: Amsterdam monographs in American studies, 12
• Author: Vincent, Bernard, 1935-
• Year of Publication: 2005
• Language: English
• Series: Amsterdam monographs in American studies ; 12.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (187 p.)
• Notes: Collect. of texts partly publ. prev.

This collection of essays by Bernard Vincent covers most aspects of Thomas Paine's life, thought, and works. It highlights Paine's contribution to the American and French Revolutions, as well as the active role he played in the intellectual debates of the Age of Enlightenment, in particular through his heated arguments with Edmund Burke or the Abbé Raynal. More than two centuries later, those debates-on the 'universal' nature of human rights or the 'exceptionalism' of the American experience-seem today to be more relevant than ever. Not only have Common Sense, Rights of Man and The Age of Reason become classics of Anglo-American literature, but, from the moment they appeared, they ushered in a new type of writer, a new way of writing-and a new class of readers. How Paine stormed the "Bastille of Words," and in so doing served both the "republic" of letters and the cause of democracy, is the real subject of this book.

Table of Contents

Introduction Storming the "Bastille of Words": Tom Paine's Revolution in Writing -- Part I. Paine, America and France -- I The Strategy of Time in Common Sense -- II Thomas Paine, the Masonic Order, and the American Revolution -- III From Fact to Myth: The Americans in Paris during the French Revolution -- IV Paine's "Share" in the French Revolution -- V Thomas Paine, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Rights of Man -- VI A National of Nowhere: The Problem of Thomas Paine's American Citizenship -- Part II. Paine and the Enlightenment -- VII Thomas Paine and the Issue of Universal Suffrage -- VIII Paine's Agrarian Justice and the Birth of the Welfare State -- IX A Quaker with a Difference: Tom Paine's Republican Rhetoric of War and Peace -- X From the Rights of Man to the Rights of God: Thomas Paine's Ultimate Challenge -- XI A Pioneer with a Difference: Thomas Paine and Early 'American Studies' -- Bibliography -- Index.