Thomas Paine

On 10th January 1776, Thomas Paine published a pamphlet entitled “Common Sense”. At a time when the 13 then British colonies were still divided between Patriots who wanted Independence and Loyalists who wished to remain connected to England, Thomas Paine delivered a fatal blow.

While many of Paine’s ideas were not new and derived from the European Enlightenment philosophers such as John Locke, Voltaire and Rousseau, his book was specifically written for the ongoing conflict and was pleading all colonies to unite and form a free nation.

Thomas Paine had arrived to the Americas in 1774, in the midst of the events leading to the First Continental Congress. The fact he was a British man attacking the British king and advocating Independence, gave his arguments a lot of weight. To this day, Common Sense remains the greatest selling book in American history…