The Beacon

Rights of Man is More Relevant Now than Ever 

I believe it’s no accident that current social beliefs and trends uncannily reflect those in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many Americans still believe that assistance to the poor…

Thomas Paine: Founder of Modern Democracy 

Thomas Paine’s first principles built the structure of democracy. The mechanisms central to Paine’s political theories are rooted in his ideology of first principles. The basic foundation of these…

Theodore Dreiser and Thomas Paine

Dreiser, like Paine, viewed oligarchy as a serious threat to ordinary Americans, who were sacrificed to rich overlords by a complicit government. Dreiser, like Paine, urged populist action: “We…

Thomas Paine: Founder of Modern Democracy 

Thomas Paine is the founder of modern democracy. In word and deed, he crafted the democratic movement in three countries, and it spread on its own around the world.…

Why Thomas Paine is so Fascinating to Me 

A Canadian who grew up outside Toronto, I first heard of Thomas Paine very briefly in high school when my Canadian history classes spent as little time as possible…

The Beacon is the TPHA’s bi-monthly journal that touches upon topics that are relevant to today’s ever-changing political climate. Here you will also find fascinating articles from our Studies in Thomas Paine, a peer-reviewed publication that focuses on one specific topic and is written by a leading historian in the field.

From Studies in Thomas Paine:

The Bonnevilles: Thomas Paine’s “Family” Part One: 

Paine’s deep relationship with the Bonnevilles lasted for more than 15 years. This essay studies Paine’s time with the Bonnevilles in Paris during the six years he lived with them, from 1797 to 1802, as…

Elihu Palmer: A Forgotten Voice of Deism

Elihu Palmer (1764 1806) was a little-known freethinker who, even after losing his vision, remained active in the intellectual debates of his time. Palmer emerged as one of the leading exponents of deism in the…

Thomas Paine and the French Revolution

Paine—as an English revolutionary and an actor, witness, and interpreter of the Age of Revolutions—developed a democratic vision during the period of the Convention initiated on 9 Thermidor (1794-1795) that distanced him from both Jacobin…

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From the Thomas Paine Society UK archives:

The Paine Conversion Myth Again  

Although today many eminent Christians, the recently retired bishop of Durham being a good example, express opinions regarding the bible similar, if not going beyond, those of Paine, few, if any, express…

Tom Paine’s Field  

Standing at the entrance to Lympstone Harbour on the river Exe in  Devon was a pillar of red sandstone. It was known as Darling Rock, or, by older inhabitants, as Tom…