Common Sense (Books of American Wisdom) Hardcover – July 1, 2002

Excellent book and truly a classic piece of literature.A shame people don't read things like this anymore.Thank you

This is the Booklet that started the American revolution, the most proportionally popular book in US history until 2008 when Dan Browns book passed it. But this thrill is more cunning and substantial. It implores Americans, the most literate colony and more literate than the British homeland, to push for independence. The inalienable rights, the imploring the nation not to live under tyranny, the setting up of a navy, the taking on national debt in order to bind the country together into a common cause and union.These and many other arguments persuaded the colonists, covering every facet and counter argument to break away, not to reconcile. About 75% of the colonists were said to have read it, and most likely passed around to the rest in taverns, through trade. The inalienable rights of each person is argued at the foundation for government, for democracy, rather then the rule of king or tyrant. The language a bit different, old fashioned, but it is the foundational booklet of essential ideas on which the new world is born.

Thomas Paine was such a profoundly important person in the context of the establishment of democracies from the late 18thcentury it is hard to know where to start with a review of this book. His writings supporting the American revolutionary cause are well known and as inspiring as if penned yesterday. We are also treated with his very personal and near fatal experience of the French Revolution and his unwavering support for peaceful change. Paine strove for democracy but not bloody revolution and was horrified when self interested parties abused the power that others had won for a noble end. We read of the very early unravelling of the democratic process in the United States and wonder if the current political environment has its origins in the time when Paine, a Founding Father, was left languishing in imprisonment in Paris by his former Revolutionary comrades in arms. One is constantly marvelling at the clarity and expression of his logic. His writings are brimming with truths which with very little reflection are so obviously self evident. This is a book for not only those interested in the origins of contemporary democracy but for everyone who professes to support the democratic process. It should be required reading for all students. If one wonders what the problems with democracy are today the answers, and way forward, are to be found in this book.

This little book is an easy way to get a brief glimpse of the time of the American Revolution, the way it sounded and felt to people then.PROS: It's a primary source, more direct than a history book, yet it's short and easy to read. Of course it's an emotional propaganda piece (for the American side, against the English king) and there are many holes in Paine's arguments, but that's part of the fun of reading a primary source -- you can analyze for yourself. Also, this little edition is nicely printed with a lovely cover.CONS: A few historical endnotes on some of the contemporary references would have been nice; this edition is purely the original text.

Wow! If we ever wonder what our Founding Fathers would think of our country today, all we have to do is read what they intended for our nation to be. This should be a mandatory read for every American on their 18th birthday so they will know exactly what to look for in the politicians who run for office and what we should be able to expect from them.

This book should be read by all Americans because is makes SENSE !!!!!

It is quite unfortunate that the maladroit public school system has failed to have this as a required reading. Thomas Paine has obtained immortality with these words in the minds of true conservative Constitutionalists-that of which has been obscured by both the Republicrats and Demopulicans. Having not read this in high school, I am glad I did. In a time when America is in an aberration from her fundamental principles I find myself genuflecting to her Constitution for insight-for that I am ridiculed, receive derision, and considered a conspiracy theorist and unpatriotic. Lamentation is among those of us who see the force that is reverting this country to a fusion between Fascism and Communism-a new hybrid of government. Fortunately, this is a REPUBLIC and we can fire back through political intervention and fiscal boycotts. We find it facile to intervene where we must, but that ability is shifting to arduousness with laws such as the Patriot Act-which makes docile dissent an act of terrorism. What Paine wrote in this pamphlet is very well applicable to our relationship to the Federal Government in the present. For me, this book gave me the boon to spread the message of what America was founded upon, the Constitution.There are those men/women that are born from the process of reproduction that go beyond the mere existence of flesh and truly lubricate their being into the gears of this Machine we call life. From the conception of their ornate thoughts to the inoculation of their fluid into our being, at times we can overlook them in the present, but in the future, we revere them for their message. How many of these individuals have we murdered, assassinated, tortured, ostracized or allowed their message to become senescent in society? The recoil can at times prove that we are indeed merely in duress by the masses, but there are those of us that see the profundity in the present. Thomas Paine was not one who was ostracized or murdered for his ideologies, but it calls forth a siren in the present that is commensurate to Ron Paul's The Revolution: A Manifesto.If I am not mistaken, I am sure I can be indicted for an act of terrorism, have Storm Troopers breach my home without warrant, be shipped to Guantanamo Bay for torture and denied rights to Due Process, all for exercising my right to free speech by writing this review; and, not to mention, for saying that the Federal Government is subordinate to the Constitution and must yield to the States; States yield to Counties; Counties to Cities; Cities to Communities; and Communities to Families-that is "the REPUBLIC for which we stand!"