Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

A "brief but potent" appreciation of one of the most influential and revolutionary works of political thought "mixing biography, criticism and philosophy" (Los Angeles Times). Christopher Hitchens, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of God Is Not Great, has been called a Tom Paine for our times. In this addition to the Books that Changed the World Series, Hitchens vividly introduces Paine and his Declaration of the Rights of Man, the world''s foremost defense of democracy. An outraged response to Edmund Burke''s attack on the French Revolution, Paine''s immortal text is a passionate defense of man''s inalienable rights, and the key to his reputation. Ever since the day of its publication in 1791, Declaration of the Rights of Man has been celebrated, criticized, maligned, suppressed, and co-opted. But in Thomas Paine''s Rights of Man, Hitchens marvels at its forethought and revels in its contentiousness. Famous as a polemicist and provocative commentator, Hitchens himself is a