It’s 200 years since the British-born “father of the American revolution” died. His words also helped shape modern Britain and France and yet few people know much about him at all. “Possibly the most influential writer in modern human history” – that’s the billing Thomas Paine got from one of his biographers. Paine was an international bestseller long before the days of Dan Brown or Jackie Collins and is the only Brit to have been quoted in Barack Obama’s inauguration speech earlier this year.
