Brooke Allen at the Hedgehog Review:The name of Thomas Paine is far better known than the life of the man behind it. Yet Paine’s origins had everything to do with the democratic causes that inspired his unmatched brilliance as a popular communicator. Son of a Quaker corset maker, he hailed from Norfolk, a county swept up in the radically egalitarian Leveller movement that arose during the English Civil War less than a century before his birth, in 1737. Paine failed in brief careers as a corset maker, excise officer, schoolteacher, and tobacconist before concluding that the only possible life for him was one of writing and reflecting. Help keep us going by donating now.