Thomas Paine was more than a Founding Father; he was a master of political prose whose pamphlets, like Common Sense and The Rights of Man, used clear, fiery language to dismantle arguments for tyranny and build a case for universal human rights. His power came from his ability to make complex ideas of liberty and justice accessible to everyone.
If you're drawn to Paine's unique blend of radical thought, sharp reason, and powerful rhetoric, you'll find a kindred spirit in the writers below. They are grouped by their relationship to Paine's work, from the philosophers who inspired him to the modern polemicists who carry his torch.
These are the thinkers who laid the intellectual groundwork for the Age of Revolution. Paine took their foundational ideas about rights and government and weaponized them for a popular audience.
To understand Paine, you must first read Locke. His Two Treatises of Government established the revolutionary concepts of natural rights—life, liberty, and property—and the idea that government derives its legitimacy from the consent of the governed. Paine took Locke's philosophical arguments and stripped away the academic language, turning them into the rallying cries that fueled a revolution.
While Locke provided the logic, Rousseau provided the passion. In works like The Social Contract, he argued that modern society had corrupted humanity's natural goodness and that a just society must be based on the "general will" of the people. Paine's focus on the fundamental corruption of monarchy and hereditary rule echoes Rousseau's powerful critique of institutional inequality.
Paine was part of a vibrant international circle of thinkers who championed reason, liberty, and reform during the Enlightenment.
Jefferson and Paine were revolutionary comrades who shared a profound belief in human liberty and the right to self-governance. While Paine was the agitator, Jefferson was the statesman. The clear, powerful, and universal principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence are a perfect complement to the arguments Paine made in Common Sense. Both men possessed a gift for transformative and inspiring prose.
A friend and fellow radical of Paine's, Wollstonecraft extended the revolutionary call for universal rights to women. Her masterpiece, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, applies the same principles of reason and justice that Paine used to attack monarchy to dismantle the patriarchy. If you admire Paine for challenging an unjust status quo, you will find Wollstonecraft's courage and intellectual rigor equally compelling.
Voltaire was a master of satire and wit, using his sharp pen to expose the hypocrisy and cruelty of the church and state. Much like Paine's takedown of organized religion in The Age of Reason, Voltaire's works, such as Candide, champion reason, free speech, and tolerance. Both writers understood that ridicule could be as powerful a weapon as a reasoned argument.
To truly appreciate Paine's radicalism, it is essential to read the arguments he was fighting against. No one articulated the conservative position more eloquently than his chief intellectual rival.
Burke is the ultimate anti-Paine. His Reflections on the Revolution in France was the direct catalyst for Paine's Rights of Man. Where Paine saw an opportunity to build the world anew based on abstract reason, Burke saw the reckless destruction of tradition, stability, and inherited wisdom. Reading them back-to-back is to witness the birth of the modern political debate between radical progressivism and traditional conservatism.
These writers inherited the intellectual tradition of the Enlightenment and carried it into the 19th century, applying its principles to new social and political challenges.
Mill is the great philosopher of individual liberty in the century after Paine. His essay On Liberty is a cornerstone of modern liberal thought, providing a profound defense of free speech, expression, and individuality against the tyranny of the majority. Readers who value the arguments for personal freedom in Paine's work will appreciate Mill's more systematic and deeply philosophical exploration of the same themes.
If Paine fought for freedom from an unjust government, Thoreau championed freedom *within* one. His essay Civil Disobedience takes Paine's revolutionary spirit and internalizes it, arguing for an individual's moral duty to resist unjust laws. Thoreau's focus on individual conscience and non-violent resistance offers a powerful evolution of the revolutionary impulse that Paine helped ignite.
The pamphleteer's spirit is alive and well. These modern writers embody Paine's commitment to challenging authority, his use of sharp and accessible prose, and his unwavering belief in the power of reason.
Orwell is perhaps the 20th century's greatest heir to Paine's style. In essays like "Politics and the English Language," he raged against the kind of vague, deceptive political prose that Paine also despised. Orwell believed, as Paine did, that clear language is a tool for liberation. His lucid, honest, and politically charged writing, from Homage to Catalonia to Animal Farm, is a direct continuation of Paine's mission to make political writing an art form for the masses.
A self-described "Paine-ite," Hitchens was a modern master of the polemic. His witty, combative, and deeply researched essays and books take on religion, totalitarianism, and political hypocrisy with a vigor Paine would have instantly recognized. Hitchens even wrote a biography of Paine's Rights of Man, and his own works, like God Is Not Great, are contemporary examples of how to use erudition and sharp rhetoric to challenge entrenched power.