Puzzle No. 93: Chain

On 10 January 1776 the English-born radical Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a roughly fifty-page pamphlet that made a plain-language argument for American independence and against hereditary monarchy. Selling hundreds of thousands of copies within months, it reached an extraordinary share of the colonial population and reframed the conflict with Britain from a dispute over the rights of British subjects into a contest over the legitimacy of monarchy itself. Paine urged the colonies to sever ties with Britain, adopt republican self-government under a written constitution, and embrace free trade. The pamphlet helped shift public opinion decisively toward independence in the months before July 1776 and demonstrated the power of cheap print to mobilise mass political sentiment. Paine later carried the same universalist arguments to Europe in Rights of Man (1791 to 92), defending the French Revolution; his works were translated and circulated worldwide, influencing reformers and revolutionaries far beyond the Atlantic world.

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Before Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

Before Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

Before Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

Before Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

Before Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

Before Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

Before Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

After Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

After Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence

After Thomas Paine's Common Sense popularises the case for independence