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    Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
    Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
    Thomas Paine's Rights of Man
    Audiobook3 hours

    Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

    Written by Christopher Hitchens

    Narrated by Simon Vance

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Thomas Paine is one of the greatest political propagandists in history. The Rights of Man, first published in 1791, is the key to his reputation. Inspired by his outrage at Edmund Burke's attack on the uprising of the French people, Paine's text is a passionate defense of the rights of man. Paine argued against monarchy and outlined the elements of a successful republic, including public education, pensions, and relief of the poor and unemployed, all financed by income tax.



    Since its publication, The Rights of Man has been celebrated, criticized, maligned, and suppressed. But here, commentator Christopher Hitchens, Paine's natural heir, marvels at its forethought and revels in its contentiousness. Above all, he shows how Thomas Paine's Rights of Man forms the philosophical cornerstone of the world's most powerful republic: the United States of America.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateSep 15, 2007
    ISBN9781400173914
    Author

    Christopher Hitchens

    Christopher Hitchens was born April 13, 1949, in England and graduated from Balliol College at Oxford University. The father of three children, he was the author of more than twenty books and pamphlets, including collections of essays, criticism, and reportage. His book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Award and an international bestseller. His bestselling memoir, Hitch-22, was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. The New York Times named his bestselling omnibus Arguably one of the ten best books of the year. A visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School in New York City, he was also the I.F. Stone professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a columnist, literary critic, and contributing editor at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, New Statesman, World Affairs, and Free Inquiry, among other publications. Following his death, Yoko Ono awarded him the Lennon-Ono Grant for Peace.

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    Reviews for Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

    4/5

    167 ratings9 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a great book that explains America's beginning in an old Englishman style. It explores the political and true beliefs of all men's rights of freedom, as written in the Bill of Rights. The author's care for the common folk is evident throughout the book. The narrator's storytelling voice is also appreciated. Overall, this book is a very good short review of the life and work of one of the great thinkers.

    What did you think?

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    • 5/5
      This is a great book,it explained America's beganing in a old Englishman style,but not to stuffy,He was way ahead of his time ,with his political and true beliefs of all mens rights of Freedom,and how we all should be treated,l ike in the bill of rights, as he wrote,it seems he has been the brains behind,CFR,NATO,bill of rights,EXT.if i heard the book correctly,any how he seemed to truely care for the common folk,and the Governments didnt like that,from England,paris to America.we never learned anything about Mr.paine in school,and that is a shame he should be in the history books,and his book should be mandatory class reading .Thank you to the narrator You have a great story reading voice.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Eek. I can’t paste my review here. Too bad… Oof.
    • 4/5
      a very good short review of the life and work of one of the great thinkers
    • 4/5
      I listened to this audiobook, authored by Christopher Hitchens, mainly out of curiosity. That was because I had just listened to the autobiographical audiobook written by his brother Peter, wherein he (Peter) explained his conversion over time from atheism, to become a believer in God and Christianity. The public differences in religious and political views between these two brothers are legendary. The key difference in worldview between them was the existence of a God from which flows a basis for human morality. Christopher, as we all know, was a radical atheist who wrote his manifesto “God is Not Great”. I suspect his motivation in writing this book on Tom Paine was to support his secular morality that was derived from humanitarianism and Marxism rather than from the Ten Commandments and the Bible so to speak. Whatever, this book on Thomas Paine is beautifully written, exciting biographical account of one of the most influential political activists in history: Thomas Paine (see Wikipedia entry for further details of the life of Thomas Paine, Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens)
    • 3/5
      Hitchens is clearly inspired by Paine, and that enthusiasm is infectious. This is more a short Paine biography than it is about the book (and its impact) specifically, though as his most influential work it's perhaps not a tale you could tell in another way. Being at the center of two revolutions, in France and in the US, his life story becomes a vessel for Hitchens' commentary about the successes and failures of both of them. As always, he's got plenty of polemic of his own to write into the narrative, and that might grate if you don't care for Hitchens' views. In this case, as he's giving a biography of a political man in a political age, I felt it just added to the story, the more opinionated the better.
    • 3/5
      I weeped like a little girl the night Hitch passed away...

      His writing was often uneven, but his voice (thanks to so many debates and interviews) live on.

      Cheers to Hitch.

    • 5/5
      It's an interesting concept: a biography for a book. If the rest of the books in this series are this strong, I should add most of them to my TBR list at once.

      I've had this book on my shelves for ages (if you want an idea of how long -- my copy is actually an ARC.) I'd been meaning to read Thomas Paine fore basically my entire life (I was raised on the musical 1776), and this was an excellent introduction to his life, his influences, and his writing. In particular I appreciated the context of how he was shaped by (and attempted to shape) the French revolution, some of the context for his religious beliefs, and his writing on the same, and the different communities that he moved through.

      I really need to read more about: The French Revolution, Paine's writings in full, and more Dickens. And then probably read this again, at some point.
    • 4/5
      This is a good introduction to Thomas Paine (1737-1809) and his works. It's main strength is the explication of the war of criticism waged between Paine and his conservative British (Tory) rival, Edmund Burke. Burke was a Monarchist who while possessing sympathy for the American Revolution was appalled by the French one. He is the perfect foil against which to expatiate upon Paine's modern sense of the common man's inalienable rights. Paine's Common Sense and Age of Reason are also summarized and their literary-historical status delineated. Paine's overview of biblical inconsistencies in the latter work must have been especially fun for Hitchens--that staunch atheist--to discuss at length. Highly recommended.
    • 3/5
      Somewhat disjointed and rambling, yet still interesting. Contains a nice (if somewhat off-the-point) takedown of Burke. Not a $20 book, though.