This was an excellent biography of Thomas Paine and his writings. Paine believed in equality for all and the pamphlet Common Sense resonated with most people in America during the Revolutionary War, He ran into problems in revolutionary France as the citizens were not quite ready to govern themselves, This book compares and contrasts Paine's life in both places during two different wars, The French Revolution was not a good time for Paine and he did spend 10 months in jail during this time. Paine fell out of favor over his Age of Reason as the deist viewpoint was not possible. Not believing in Jesus Christ as a Redeemer did not sit well with most people at this time. Paine was smart and studied mechanics in his spare time, learning all he could about Natural Philosophy, but was unable to learn a foreign language.

This was an interesting biography on a man that few people have heard much about unless they are really into history. Thomas Paine had an enormous impact on the American Revolution and the author did a great job of capturing not only his contribution to the revolution, but also interesting tidbits of his life.

Paine followed reason as he was writing against the two tent poles of traditionalism, monarchy and religion. He suffered for his beliefs. I read this after hearing Mo Rocca talk about Paine at ALA.

A very easy-to-follow biography of one of the greatest personalities to affect the American Revolution by one of today's foremost historians. Unger's prose allows the triumph and tragedy of the enigmatic Paine to come center stage, and those looking for a biographical profile will not feel intimidated in giving this a go. I particularly enjoyed that the author touched on Paine's relationships with other notables of the era, letting Paine speak for himself as only he could. Most are familiar of course with Common Sense, but to hear his colorful yet simple language in his letters to contemporaries allows the reader a deep dive into Paine's psyche. In the interest of full disclosure, I received an advanced copy for review.

Will post to Amazon once the title is released. Thank you for allowing me an advance copy of this title.

This is a great historical book and the author has done their research. Valuable information and interesting. Well written and easy to understand.