| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 131.3

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| Book Reviews | The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 131.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Reviews

Thomas Paine and the Literature of Revolution. By Edward Larkin. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. x, 205 pp. Notes, works cited, index. $65.00.)
One need only walk the streets of Philadelphia to gain a sense of Thomas Paine's status as one of the key founders of the American republic. There are three "monuments" to the revolutionary author in Center City: the first, a standard-issue placard at the site of the print shop of Robert Bell, the first printer of Common Sense; a second, the adjacent green street sign for Thomas Paine Place, signaling a block-long alley tucked politely off the beaten tourist path; and a third, the Thomas Paine Plaza near City Hall, which boasts a statue of Benjamin Franklin (not Paine) and a tribute to board games. In a city rich with veneration for a pantheon of founders, Paine is but a vague recollection.	1
Thomas Paine is most often forgotten because he is most often misunderstood. Paine's legacy has been clouded for two centuries by the polarities of smear campaigns and hagiographies. Only in the last few decades have scholars begun to take a balanced view of Paine, and a recent spate of books and articles on his tempestuous career and powerful pen bode well for a fuller understanding of this intriguing individual.	. . .

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