Thomas Paine was born (in 1737) literally within sight of the gallows, which was where many political reactionaries of his time wished that he would end up. His birthplace in Telford, Norfolk, looked directly on the local gibbet, where hangings were frequent and often for quite minor offences. This alone was an instigation to his lifelong radical republicanism, and the England of his time, dominated by aristocratic privilege and even jobbery, fed his Dissenter and Leveller mentality. He was a bright schoolboy but had to leave school early to be apprenticed to his father's - staymaking business, and he soon went to sea as a privateer and saw action against the French. Penury forced him to emigrate to America, where he became involved in the struggle for independence against England, and later he was caught up in the French Revolution and barely escaped death under Robespierre's Terror - he was actually scheduled for execution, but somehow the death squad failed to see the fatal bhal mark on the door of his cell. When Napoleon rose to power: Paine supported his scheme to invade England, which he saw as a way of overthrowing tyranny, and if the English had caught him he would certainly have been hanged, both for his. writings and for his "treason". Eventually he returned to. America, where he had taken citizenship, and died in poverty and virtual isolation in New York in 1809; his last days were soured by well meaning people who read the Bible to him on his death bed and hoped to convert him from his outspoken atheism. John Keane sums up his political views by saying: "He supported unbridled freedom of assembly and expression, but not its licentious abuse. He favoured private property and market competition, but fought for the principle of guaranteed citizens' income and other tax funded public measures to prevent society's cruel subdivision into rich and poor." At over 600 pages long, this book is factually dense and not always limpid reading.