Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)
by Christopher Hitchens

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Christopher Hitchens
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-07-23
ISBN: 0871139553
Number of pages: 160
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press

Book Reviews of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)

Book Review: Perfect companion to Paines "Rights of Man" Read it first if you can.
Summary: 5 Stars

Thinking of how this book was bought to provide insight and detail for my reading of Thomas Paine's Collected works, I must admit the first few pages only sent me into Paine at an even more furious pace. I should be reviewing this book before the collected works but as it ended up I only just finished it months after reading much of Paine's works. Save the Rights of Man until you read this, I found what I was looking for and more in the manner that only Hitchen's can express it.Great notes on why and towards whom the Rights of man is directed and how it remains relevant today. Will greatly enhance your reading experience even if it could easily have been twice as long.Hitchen's is a master who understands Paine and brings to light things the casual reader may miss. Remember read it first because if you have never REALLY read Paine once you start you will not be able to put him down.

Summary of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography (Books That Changed the World)

Thomas Paine was one of the greatest advocates of freedom in history, and his Declaration of the Rights of Man, first published in 1791, is the key to his reputation. Inspired by his outrage at Edmund Burke's attack on the French Revolution, Paine's text is a passionate defense of man's inalienable rights. Since its publication, Rights of Man has been celebrated, criticized, maligned, suppressed, and co-opted. But in Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, the polemicist and commentator Christopher Hitchens, "at his characteristically incisive best," marvels at its forethought and revels in its contentiousness (The Times, London). Hitchens is a political descendant of the great pamphleteer, "a Tom Paine for our troubled times." (The Independent, London) In this "engaging account of Paine's life and times [that is] well worth reading" he demonstrates how Paine's book forms the philosophical cornerstone of the United States, and how, "in a time when both rights and reason are under attack," Thomas Paine's life and writing "will always be part of the arsenal on which we shall need to depend." (New Statesman)

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