TANT QUE L'INDÉPENDANCE ne sera pas déclarée, le continent se sentira dans la situation d'un homme qui, ne cessant de remettre au lendemain quelque affaire désagréable, sait néanmoins qu'il doit s'en acquitter, répugne à s'y mettre, souhaite en avoir fini et est perpétuellement hanté par l'obsession de sa nécessité. Thomas Paine, 1776.Publié pour la première fois au Québec, Le Sens commun de Paine est le best-seller de 1776 qui a convaincu les Américains de choisir l'indépendance. La clairvoyance de Paine est tout simplement extraordinaire et fascinante. [...] Les notes biographiques de Jean-Pierre Boyer [...] aident à mieux saisir l'époque et le personnage qu'était Thomas Paine. Le sens commun est indispensable à tous les passionnés d'histoire. Louis-Philippe GRATON, Impact-Campus.
Quand un pays de l'univers, quel qu'il soit, pourra dire: mes pauvres sont heureux; ni l'ignorance ni la détresse ne règne parmi eux; mes geôles sont dépourvues de prisonniers et mes rues de mendiants; la vieillesse n'est pas dans le besoin; les impôts ne sont pas oppressifs; le monde rationnel est mon ami parce que je suis ami de son bonheur: quand il pourra dire ces choses-là, alors ce pays pourra se vanter de sa constitution et de son gouvernement.
Thomas Paine, 1792
Publié pour la première fois au Québec, Les Droits de l'Homme de Thomas Paine est un ouvrage emblématique des révolutions démocratiques du XVIIIe siècle et demeure un des textes précurseurs de la Déclaration universelle des droits de l'homme de 1948, dont on célèbre cette année le cinquantenaire.
Please note: This audiobook has been created using AI voice.
Thomas Paine wrote the first part of The Rights of Man in 1791 as a response to the furious attack on the French Revolution by the British parliamentarian Edmund Burke in his pamphlet Reflections on the Revolution in France, published the previous year. Paine carefully dissects and counters Burke's arguments and provides a more accurate description of the events surrounding the revolution of 1789. He then reproduces and comments on the "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens" promulgated by the National Assembly of France.
The manuscript of The Rights of Man was placed with the publisher Joseph Johnson, but that publisher was threatened with legal action by the British Government. Paine then gave the work to another publisher, J. S. Jordan, and on the advice of William Blake, Paine went to France to be out of the way of possible arrest in Britain. The Rights of Man was published in March 1791, and was an immediate success with the British public, selling nearly a million copies.
A second part of the book, subtitled "Combining Principle and Practice," was published in February 1792. It puts forward practical proposals for the establishment of republican government in countries like Britain.
The Rights of Man had a major impact, leading to the establishment of a number of reform societies. After the publication of the second part of the book, Paine and his publisher were charged with seditious libel, and Paine was eventually forced to leave Britain and flee to France. Today The Rights of Man is considered a classic of political writing and philosophy.
Please note: This audiobook has been created using AI voice.
Thomas Paine was an American political commentator and activist in the latter part of the eighteenth century. His writing covered a wide range of subjects, but were centered on his core beliefs of republicanism and the inherent rights of people. An early pamphlet of his, "Common Sense," was written soon after he arrived in America from Great Britain; with its focus on the ills of colonialism and the King's veering between rational debate and righteous outrage, it has been cited as one of the major catalysts for the American Revolution. Later work attempted to correct the mistakes he perceived in postrevolution French government-written from experience after his election to the French National Convention-and even suggested a costed plan for a universal basic income funded by an inheritance tax.
Collected here are his essays and pamphlets written between 1776 and 1797, including the aforementioned "Common Sense" and other influential works like "The Republican Proclamation" and the "Declaration of Rights."
Please note: This audiobook has been created using AI voice.
The American Crisis is a collection of articles by Thomas Paine, originally published from December 1776 to December 1783, that focus on rallying Americans during the worst years of the Revolutionary War. Paine used his deistic beliefs to galvanize the revolutionaries, for example by claiming that the British are trying to assume the powers of God and that God would support the American colonists. These articles were so influential that others began to adopt some of their more stirring phrases, catapulting them into the cultural consciousness; for example, the opening line of the first Crisis, which reads "These are the times that try men's souls."
« Je vous présente un petit Traité pour la défense de ces principes de liberté que votre vertu exemplaire a si éminemment contribué à établir. Puissent les Droits de l'Homme devenir aussi universellement connus que votre bienveillance le désire ; et puissiez-vous avoir le bonheur de voir le Nouveau Monde régénérer l'ancien. » Thomas Paine
Please note: This audiobook has been created using AI voice.
The Age of Reason is an important work in the American Deist movement. Paine worked on it continually for more than a decade, publishing it in three parts from 1794 through 1807. It quickly became a bestseller in postRevolution America, spurring a revival in Deism as an alternative to the prevailing Christian influence.
In clear, simple, and often funny language, Paine attempts to dissect the Bible's supposed inaccuracies and hypocrisies. He portrays the Bible as a human construct, full of illogic, errors, and internal inconsistencies, as opposed to it being a text born of divine inspiration. On those arguments he pivots to decrying not just Christianity, but organized religion as a whole, as a human invention created to terrorize and enslave. Instead of accepting organized religion, he states that "his mind is his own church" and that man must embrace reason.
While these arguments weren't new to the wealthy and educated class of the era, they were new to the poor masses. The book was at first distributed as cheap unbound pamphlets, making it easily accessible to the poor; and Paine's simple language was written in way the poor could understand and sympathize with. This made the powerful very nervous, and, fearing that the book could cause a potential revolution, Paine and his publishers were suppressed.
Paine wrote The Age of Reason while living in Paris. In France, its thesis wasn't revolutionary enough for the bloodthirsty Jacobins; he was imprisoned there for ten months and only escaped execution through a stroke of luck. Meanwhile in Britain, the government considered the pamphlets seditious. British booksellers and publishers involved in printing and distributing the pamphlets were repeatedly tried for seditious and blasphemous libel, with some even receiving sentences of hard labor.
Paine began writing Part III after escaping France for America, but even the American elite thought the book too scandalous, with Thomas Jefferson-himself a Deist-advising Paine not to publish. Paine listened to Jefferson's advice and held off publishing Part III for five years before publishing extracts as separate pamphlets. For that reason, Part III is not a concrete publication, but rather an arrangement of several looselyrelated pamphlets organized at the discretion of an edition's editor.
Once it was in the hands of Americans, it sparked a revival in Deism in the United States before being viciously attacked from all sides. Paine earned a reputation as an agitator and blasphemer that stuck to him for the rest of his life.
Despite The Age of Reason's harsh reception-or perhaps, because of it, and the controversy and discussion it caused-it achieved a popularity in England, France, and America that gave it incredible influence in those nation's perspectives on organized religion.
Common Sense is a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775-76 that inspired people in the Thirteen Colonies to declare and fight for independence from Great Britain in the summer of 1776. In clear, simple language it explained the advantages of and the need for immediate independence. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. Washington had it read to all his troops, which at the time had surrounded the British army in Boston. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time , it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from British rule at a time when the question of whether or not to seek independence was the central issue of the day. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood. Forgoing the philosophical and Latin references used by Enlightenment era writers, he structured Common Sense as if it were a sermon, and relied on Biblical references to make his case to the people. He connected independence with common dissenting Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as "the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era".
C'est à l'ombre de la guillotine, alors qu'il croit sa dernière heure venue, que le citoyen Thomas PAINE, député "brissotin" à la Convention, écrit "Le siècle de la Raison", improprement appelé la "Bible des Athées". Dans cette oeuvre antidogmatique conçue comme un testament, Thomas PAINE livre ses réflexions philosophiques. Aboutissement des Lumières, cet ouvrage marque aussi le début d'une critique matérialiste scientifique de la Bible et des religion monothéistes.
In this captivating collection of short nonfiction works, renowned authors explore diverse themes and perspectives. From Thomas Paine's revolutionary treatise on human rights to poignant essays on nature and the human condition, this volume offers a rich tapestry of ideas and insights. Discover the power of words as they illuminate the complexities of society, challenge conventional wisdom, and inspire profound reflection.
