Thomas Paine Biography

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Dictionary of Literary Biography on Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine was the most widely read and controversial reform writer of the late eighteenth century on two continents. His appeal was based less on his grasp of reformist philosophy and political theory or on any great originality of thought than on his ability to express progressive and egalitarian theories of the Enlightenment in the idiom of the social class from which he himself sprang--the artisans, or skilled laborers. This class was becoming increasingly politicized in the late eighteenth century in response to several kinds of social conflict. One was the increasing social distance between the upper and middle classes on one hand and the lower classes on the other. Another was the increasingly hostile attitude of the upper ranks toward the culture of the laboring class, including expectations of the "fair price" and "fair wage." Another factor was increasingly aggressive capitalist practices of labor management and wages, which left increasing numbers of the lower classes destitute and dependent on poor relief.

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