This is an attractively designed book bound in genuine bonded leather, with gilt edged pages that will make an elegant addition to any home library. Decorative and durable, this puts a classic of American history in the palm of your hand. The publication of Thomas Paine's incendiary pamphlet, Common Sense, in January of 1776 proved the tipping point for America's Revolutionary War. Its eloquent and reasoned argument about the inherent unfairness of monarchic succession, and its catalogue of abuses by the English Crown against the colonies, was crucial to persuading the colonists and their leaders to take up arms against British troops. Selling as many as a half-million copies in its first year of publication, Common Sense reached literate citizens in the colonies in a way that no other tract had done before, and its accessible prose was instrumental in outlining common goals and objectives for a country just coming into its sense of a national identity. This edition features the full text of Thomas Paine's pamphlet, a scholarly Foreword on the social and political significance of the tract, and a Chronology of Thomas Paine's Life.