Thomas Paine's Common Sense is a must-read for the Revolutionary Era, but I found it quaint. You must remember it was published shortly before the war as a rallying cry for independence, and he describes the possibilities. For that reason, it's interesting to see how people thought the result would be before it happened. It's like post-9/11: On September 20th, would any of us imagined the Iraq, the TSA, or the NSA? We envisioned vaguely going in and kicking some Taliban and Osama ass, and that's about it. Or on a more mundane level, Harry Potter after Goblet of Fire. It took Rowling three years to push out Order of the Phoenix, and in that time theories were flying everywhere about how the war against Voldemort would be conducted. None of us really expected a whole book dedicated to the Ministry denying his existence.

Paine is sort of like that. He has naturally has a very optimistic view of the future and about democracy in general. For example, he tries to push the case that the republics of Europe in 1775 are not bellicose and constant warfare is a problem of tyrannical monarchies, which is laughable when you see the United States today. And I would say naïve when you look at history: Being a republic never stopped the Romans from fighting. And he claims that with more natural resources and proficient industry, America would beat the British militarily, again laughable when you realize there's no way the United States would've won without French assistance and after the war we were getting our asses kicked by northern African states. He also created this system of post-war government that clearly no one paid attention to.

Still, it's cool to see what the sentiments were at the moment because you can see the expectations and what people strove for before reality, politics, and everything else weighed in.