Paine's electrifying 1776 pamphlet urging the American colonies to break from Britain. Written in plain language, it sold in vast numbers and helped swing public opinion toward independence.
Sources for Thomas Paine — Common Sense
Thomas Paine — Common Sense in Governance & Society
Held in the Governance & Society chamber of the Babel Nexus Index.
- Aristotle — Politics (−350)
- Cicero — De Re Publica (On the Commonwealth) (−54)
- Cicero — De Legibus (On the Laws) (−52)
- Kautilya — Arthashastra (−300)
- Machiavelli — The Prince (1532)
- Plato — The Republic (−380)
- Thomas Hobbes — Leviathan (1651)
- John Locke — Two Treatises of Government (1689)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau — The Social Contract (1762)
- Thomas Paine — Rights of Man (1791)
- Alexis de Tocqueville — Democracy in America (1835)
- John Stuart Mill — On Liberty (1859)