Rights of Man by Tom Paine - Pt 1

Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809) published Rights of Man in 1791, in response to the Irish politician and historian, Edmund Burke, whose critical essay, Reflections of the French Revolution, published the previous year, offended Paine's own feelings of support for the people of France in their struggle (as he saw it) against the despotism and corruption of rule by hereditary aristocratic government. Rights of Man was tremendously well received in both Britain and France by early advocates of the French revolution. Within a short time, however, many of Burke's warnings and prophecies were to come true.