Common Sense

Published anonymously in January 1776, Common Sense argued — in plain, forceful prose accessible to farmers and merchants alike — that American independence from Britain was not just desirable but a matter of, well, common sense. Thomas Paine's pamphlet sold hundreds of thousands of copies within months, turned wavering colonists into revolutionaries, and directly paved the way to the Declaration of Independence six months later. Few texts in history have moved a population to action as quickly or as completely as this one.