A Political Biography of Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) was a radical, a revolutionary, an author and a pamphleteer. Denounced in Britain following the publication of the Rights of Man (1791), Paine’s intellectual legacy is such that he is still cited in the political rhetoric of today. Speck’s biography examines Paine’s work in light of new thinking about the role of religion in the formation of his political ideology, and also places Paine within the context of ‘Atlantic History’.