what did thomas paine write

Thomas Paine is best known for writing several hugely influential political pamphlets that helped shape both the American and French revolutions. His most famous works argued for independence, democratic government, and freedom of thought.

Key works Paine wrote

• Common Sense (1776): A fiery pamphlet urging the American colonies to declare independence from Britain, attacking monarchy and hereditary rule, and arguing that republican self-government was common sense for America.

• The American Crisis (series, 1776–1783): A set of wartime essays, opening with the famous line “These are the times that try men’s souls,” written to inspire American soldiers and citizens during the Revolutionary War.

• Rights of Man (Part I, 1791; Part II, 1792): A defense of the French Revolution and a broad argument for natural rights, popular sovereignty, written constitutions, and social reforms like poor relief and progressive taxation.

• The Age of Reason (1794–1795): A deist critique of organized religion and traditional Christianity, arguing that reason and observation of nature—not revelation or church authority—should guide religious belief.

• Agrarian Justice (1797): A pamphlet proposing that landowners pay into a national fund to support universal payments to young adults and pensions for the elderly, an early argument for something like a basic income funded by wealth and inheritance.

Other writings and pamphlets

• Paine also wrote many shorter political essays and newspaper pieces, including writings on constitutional design, representation, and critiques of monarchy collected in multivolume editions such as The Writings of Thomas Paine.

• His work circulated widely on both sides of the Atlantic, making him one of the most read political writers of the late 18th century.

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