To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine (2016)

• 86%
• 2016
• History
• Haskell Wexler

Thomas Paine's life was a great arc. He arrived in Philadelphia as a remarkably unremarkable thirty-seven-year-old only to change the world, and then have the world he changed turn its back on him. He ignited the American Revolution, defined the French Revolution, and championed the Age of Reason, yet he died largely ignored and disdained. His ideas about democracy, equality, slavery, the Bible, pensions, health-care, education, and morality would have created a very different America had the other founding fathers listened to this most radical one. In this film, Paine will take you on this journey, from his birth to his death, with all the extraordinary events on the way.