• Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

  • A Biography: Books That Changed the World
  • By: Christopher Hitchens
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 3 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (570 ratings)

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Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

By: Christopher Hitchens
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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Publisher's summary

Thomas Paine was 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.

©2007 Christopher Hitchens (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.

Critic reviews

"Lucid and fast-moving....As with all Hitchens, well worth reading." ( Kirkus)
"Brilliant portrait....An attractive introduction to Paine's life and work as a whole....Hitchens remains a great writer, and a thinker of depth, range, and vigour." ( Prospect)

What listeners say about Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

No focus here

This books ends up talking about Edmund Burke more it does about the Thomas Paine. It does not quote from The Rights of Man once.

It only covers Paine's life in the US during the revolution, and during the revolution in France. It cannot be considered a biography because it does not tell of his beginnings—something I would have enjoyed knowing.

Not recommended.

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26 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Hitchens on Paine = Near Perfection

“In a time when both rights and reason are under several kinds of open and covert attack, the life and writing of Thomas Paine will always be part of the arsenal on which we shall need to depend.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

While there is no imperfect time to read about Thomas Paine or read Christopher Hitchens, 2016 with Brexit and Trump seem to almost BEG for a steroid shot of rationality and intelligence. I read this because I was tired of the news, tired of the discourse, tired of FB debates and arguments that seemed inane and inept (I once saw a debate over some political issue that was carried out entirely using memes). I wondered how we could have dropped from a period where big ideas were discussed by big men (yes, and big women: see Mary Wollstonecraft) to this?

Anyway, about 10 years ago The Atlantic Monthly Press published this book as part of their series Books that Changed the World. Think about this for a minute. Thomas Paine, a largely self-educated son of a corset-maker, wrote a book that would be included on a short list among such books as:

1. Holy Bible: King James Version
2. Machiavelli's The Prince
3. Plato's The Republic
4. Darwin's The Origin of Species
5. The Qur'an
6. Homer's The Iliad/The Odyssey
7. Smith's The Wealth of Nations
8. Clausewitz's On War
9. Marx's Das Kapital

That isn't a lazy peer group. Think about this too. Thomas Paine had his fingers directly in two revolutions (American and French) and was working on a third (England). His words seem almost as natural as the Bible. His concepts are woven into the fabric of our modern sense of freedom, rights, democracy. He is THE prime example that simple words, in the right hands, can change the course of global events. Obviously, the French and American revolutions most certainly would have still happened without Thomas Paine, but the revolutions and the ideas behind them would not have been the same. This guy's words were matches of poetry AND power.

It is amazing, also, to me to think Thomas Paine didn't produce just one revolutionary book/pamphlet, but three (more, but I'll focus on his big three). At different times of my life I have loved, reverenced, and revered Common Sense, The Age of Reason, and Rights of Man as the great Paine book. Each seems destined to continue to be a source of inspiration and direction for those seeking freedom, rights, liberty, and justice. It is hard to imagine my country and the world as it would have been without him. IF that isn't tribute enough, here is final from Bertrand Russell (this appears in the front of the book):

"To all these champions of the oppressed Paine set an example of courage, humanity, and single-mindedness. When public issues were involved, he forgot personal prudence. The world decided, as it usually does in such cases, to punish him for his lack of self-seeking; to this day his fame is less than it would have been if his character had been less generous. Some worldly wisdom is required even to secure praise for the lack of it." - Bertrand Russell, The Fate of Thomas Paine.

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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Exciting July Fourth Listening! Wow!

Somehow I had expected this would be simply Tom Paine's writing, not a whole book about him. History, philosophy and politics are not my strengths, but I've lived long enough and traveled enough that I do care about these things. I found another audio book on the same topics, Founding Brothers, very difficult listening, although I believed it was well narrated. This book by contrast is almost suspenseful. The narrator reads with great understanding, but the book is written so as to be interesting. This author has an exciting mind!

Back in high school I didn't really get it about the deists. And who cared about the Louisiana Purchase? Paine was already trying to solve the problem of slavery, develop a plan for freed slaves. Paine even foresaw a need for a welfare system. Well, goodness! It's a most stimulating book. Educational, exciting, most worthwhile.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars

Good, but not exactly what I expected.

I picked this up after hearing Thomas Paine's unwavering irreligious convictions referred to by Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins in their atheist literature. Unfortunately there was not as much information in this vein as I'd hoped, though the last chapter(s?) did recount his later life when his religious views came into sharper focus. Mostly this was interesting in terms of American/British history, and the history of philosophy about human rights.

As others have noted, it is occasionally difficult to tell where a quotation ends and the main text resumes; but genterally the narration is expemplary with some very nice Scottish brogue thrown in for spice.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

A True American Hero

Paine was a genius in his own time and his story his truly a remarkable one. His ideas and philosophies were spot on and overall, he's easily my favorite "founding father". With that said, though, this audio book is dull and I had a tough time trying to keep focus to listen to it.

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5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Entertaining and Informative

Would you consider the audio edition of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man to be better than the print version?

If you want the freedom of "reading" (listening) while, say, driving.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man?

Christopher Hitchen's lucid writing style.

What about Simon Vance’s performance did you like?

He was clearly prepared and made the material audibly digestible.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, and it's rather short so this may be a distinct possibility for many.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Mandatory Reading for all first year College stude

If you could sum up Thomas Paine's Rights of Man in three words, what would they be?

Should be read

What did you like best about this story?

The premise is the story of liberty and the development of democracy in these United States.

Have you listened to any of Simon Vance’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

SImon Vance was good enough.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

No entirely possible. Nor should it be.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Excellent Biography of Underappreciated Founder

What could be better than reading the eloquent Christopher Hitchens's writings about the underappreciated founding father of America, Thomas Paine? Well, since I listened to it on Audible it would've been better if Hitch had narrated it back when he wrote it. The narrator, Simon Vance, was excellent and has a pleasant English accent so after a while I pretended I was listening to Hitch.

Paine emigrated from England to America in 1774. This is a short biography which focused mostly on Paine's life during the American and French Revolutions, further focusing on Paine's famous book <i> Rights of Man</i> written in 1791 which, at a high level, opined that people are born with human rights at birth and the government's only purpose is to safeguard these rights; and if the government does not uphold the rights of its people revolution is justified. This book was written as a response to a publication by Edmund Burke which attacked the French revolution during this time. Having been instrumental in America's revolution and resulting government, he was very supportive of France's effort and made numerous trips to France after the American revolution to support the cause.

Any American school kid knows that Paine was instrumental in rousing support for the American revolution. His book <i>Common Sense</i> was published in January 1776, and it attacked the British monarchy and outlined reasons for a free country took the Colonies by storm and whipped up support for the revolution which had just started.

While in France supporting their revolution Paine was arrested and imprisoned for almost a year by the French government who rejected his American citizenship and claimed he was an Englishman by birth and therefore technically at war with France. After being released from prison in 1794 through the assistance of new American representative in France, James Monroe, he wrote my favorite of his books, <i>The Age of Reason</i>. This masterpiece was years ahead of its time. In it Paine takes on organized religion and the very legitimacy of the <i>Bible</i>. Paine pointed out how wrongly powerful the christian churches had become and pointed out that the <i>Bible</i> was a man-made creation and not a production of any divine entity, nor influenced by one, and he rejected all miracles. Paine was a deist. For an 18th century writer to demolish organized religion, especially Christianity, and miraculous beliefs so effectively was really impressive (many decades before Robert Ingersoll took the baton), and this book was also a hit amongst American citizens and resulted in growth in deism. <i>The Age of Reason</i> is a fantastic work, and Hitchens devotes a good deal of time relating examples of Paine's train of thought on a number of religious subjects and explaining how influential this was for its time, when most citizens were under the yoke of religion and accepted miraculous beliefs without question.

Hitchens' book ends with a conclusion which talks of Paine's legacy. He gradually withdrew from society but would pop up to support causes he believed in like the expansion of the US west and the fight against slavery. Paine died at home in great pain. On his death bed, he sent away two Presbyterian ministers who showed up uninvited and pushed past his housekeeper to try to convince Paine to accept Jesus Christ and save himself. Hitchens states, "thus he expired with his reason and his rights both still staunchly defended until the very last". Paine has no burial site. His corpse was dug up in 1819 and parts of him were reportedly taken to different places. This is a story in itself.

In February 2022, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland along with eight of his House colleagues, introduced legislation to authorize the construction of a memorial in Washington DC for Paine.

Raskin's statement: “Tom Paine was a person so far ahead of his time that his work still challenges us in significant ways today to build a more democratic society. This luminary patriot of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution inspired people in the colonies not only to overthrow the tyranny of faraway kings but to launch a nation founded on principles of democratic self-government, the rights of men and of women, and reason and science. Despite his catalytic role in founding America and our constitutional republic, Paine remains too often on the dark outskirts of history. It is way past time for Congress to give Paine the central place of respect and awe he deserves in our Nation’s Capital. This memorial to Paine—amazingly, already pre-funded with a flood of voluntary contributions and pledges from private citizens—will be a powerful and dramatic addition to the symbolic life of Washington, D.C.”

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A well-told biography

I followed Hitchens for his athiests content. But so obsessed am I that I read this historical biography just to hear more of his words. It really isn't a very interesting topic for me, British and early American history. But it's well written, so anyone who loves history will like this book.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Points of Rederence

There are people who changed the face of our world, teachers of doubt and liberty. Cristopher Hitchens book brings us closer to one of them.

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