Description

Thomas Paine was among the best promoters of independence ever, and his Assertion of the Rights of Man, first published in 1791, may be the key to his status. Impressed by his dislike at Edmund Burke’s assault on the French Revolution, Paine’s wording is just a zealous defense of man’s inalienable rights. Since its publication, Rights of Man hasbeen recognized, criticized, maligned, suppressed, and co opted. However in Jones Paine’s Rights of Man, the polemicist and commentator Christopher Hitchens, “at his usually incisive greatest,” marvels at its focus and revels in its contentiousness (The Changing Times, London).