Common Sense
by Thomas Paine
"Common sense" presented the American colonialists with a strong argument in favor of independence from British rule at a time when the question of independence had not yet been resolved. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style understood by ordinary people; Abandoning the philosophy and Latin references used by the Enlightenment writers, Paine structured Common Sense as a sermon and relied on biblical references to make people do their job. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as "the most provocative and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary period."
