Common Sense by Thomas Paine, Edited by Thomas P. Slaughter - First Edition, 2001 from Macmillan Student Store
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Common Sense

First  Edition©2001 Thomas Paine, Edited by Thomas P. Slaughter

About

Thomas Paine’s Common Sense is one of the most important and often assigned primary documents of the Revolutionary era. This edition of the pamphlet is unique in its inclusion of selections from Paine’s other writings from 1775 and 1776 — additional essays that contextualize Common Sense and provide unusual insight on both the writer and the cause for which he wrote. The volume introduction includes coverage of Paine’s childhood and early adult years in England, arguing for the significance of personal experience, environment, career, and religion in understanding Paine’s influential political writings. The volume also includes a glossary, a chronology, 12 illustrations, a selected bibliography, and questions for consideration.

Table of Contents

  Foreword
  Preface
  A Note on the Texts
    
PART I. INTRODUCTION: THOMAS PAINE'S AMERICA
  Young Tom Paine
  Growing Up
  Excise Man
  Passages
  Slavery
  British Army
  Marriage
  Common Sense
  Publication and Circulation
  Equality
  Biblical Authority
  The Economy of Freedom
  Intellectual Influences
  Propaganda
  The Forester
  Radical Politics
  The American Crisis
  Thomas Paine's Future
    
PART TWO. DOCUMENTS
  African Slavery in America, 1774
  A Serious Thought, October 18, 1775
  A Dialogue between General Wolfe and General Gage in a Wood Near Boston, January 4, 1775
  Thoughts on Defensive War, July 1775
  Reflections on Unhappy Marriages, June 1775
  Common Sense, January 10, 1776
  The Forester, Number 1, 1776
  The American Crisis, Number 1, December 19, 1776
    
APPENDIXES
  A Thomas Paine Chronology
  Questions for Consideration
  Selected Bibliography
    
  Index

Thomas Paine

Thomas P. Slaughter

Thomas P. Slaughter is Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of three prize-winning books: The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (1986); Bloody Dawn: The Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North (1991); and The Natures of John and William Bartram (1996). He also edited the Library of America edition of The Writings of William Bartram (1996). His books have won the National Historical Society Book Prize, the American Revolution Round Table Award, the Society of the Cincinnati Award, and the New Jersey Council for the Humanities Distinguished Author Award. He is a former fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Shelby Cullom Davis Center. He is currently writing two books, Vision Quest: Lewis and Clark's Search for the Known and The Snake in the Garden and Snakes in the Grass: History and Culture in Early America.