435 Common Sense at 250: The Unfinished Work of Democracy, A Live Conversation
About this episode
The episode explores the legacy of Thomas Paine's *Common Sense* and its implications for democracy 250 years later.
In January 1776, Thomas Paine told the American colonies to break free from their king. But what was supposed to come next? 250 years later, that question still doesn't have a good answer. To mark the anniversary of *Common Sense*, we traveled to Lewes, England, the town where Paine lived before he ever set foot in America, and recorded our first-ever LIVE episode inside Bull House, the building where Paine honed his ideas about citizens and their government. Joseph Adelman chairs a panel with scholars Leanne O'Boyle, Nicole Mahoney, and Jeanne Sheehan Zaino as they dig into the legacy of *Common Sense*: democracy's "day two problem," the women Paine wrote out of his own story, why "the law is king" keeps showing up on protest signs, and what a 15th-century building in a small English town can teach us about where democratic ideas actually take root. Recorded live in partnership with the Institute for Thomas Paine Studies at Iona University.Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/435 EPISODE OUTLINE00:00:00 Introduction00:01:06 What Happened After the Revolution?00:02:59 Live from the Bull House in Lewes, England00:04:49 A Template for Common Sense and Civic Life00:07:12…
Topics covered
- democracy
- Common Sense
- Thomas Paine
- civic engagement
- women in history
- American Revolution
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