Tom Paine's War with Jack Kelly

Few figures of the American Revolution wielded words as powerfully as Thomas Paine. In this episode of the Revolution 250 Podcast, host Professor Robert Allison is joined by historian and journalist Jack Kelly, author of Tom Paine’s War, for a wide-ranging conversation about Paine’s outsized influence on the Revolutionary cause.

Kelly explores how Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense transformed colonial resistance into a popular movement for independence, reaching audiences far beyond elite political circles. The discussion traces Paine’s role as a wartime propagandist, the impact of The American Crisis during the darkest days of the war, and George Washington’s strategic use of Paine’s words to sustain morale in the Continental Army.

The episode also examines Paine’s complicated personality, his transatlantic radicalism, and his uneasy place in the postwar United States, where the man who helped ignite the Revolution found himself increasingly marginalized. Together, Allison and Kelly consider why Paine mattered so deeply in his own time and why his ideas about liberty, democracy, and popular sovereignty continue to resonate 250 years later.

A compelling look at the power of ideas in wartime America, this episode reminds us that the Revolution was fought not only with muskets and cannon, but with ink, paper, and the force of persuasion.

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