Paine Author:David Freeman Hawke Biography of Thomas Paine. — John Adams said that "without the pen of Paine the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain." Yet of all the great figures of the American Revolution, Paine has remained obscure and little understood. David Freeman Hawke remedies this situation with a distinguished biography of th... more »e brilliant propagandist who wrote Common Sense, The Age of Reason, and The Rights of Man. Hawke describes a life of incredible diversity, from Paine's obscure beginnings as a poor ladies' corsetmaker in England through the dramatic roles he played in the American and French revolutions, his friendships with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe, his imprisonment in France during the Terror, his trial and banishment from England for The Rights of Man, and the pathos of his declining years....« less