The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife and Times of Thomas Paine

by Paul Collins

Book Overview

Paul Collins travels the globe piecing together the missing body and soul of one of our most enigmatic founding fathers: Thomas Paine. A typical book about an American founding father doesn't start at... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1582345023
• ISBN13: 9781582345024
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
• Length: 275 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Not just about Thomas Paine.....

To those reviewers who were disappointed because "this book was supposed to be about Thomas Paine," I would have to say that you missed the point. This book is much more than just another bio of Thomas Paine. It's about his ideals, and the author brilliantly uses his bones to tell the story. He does a great job of weaving the story and connecting many of the brilliant minds who continued to fight for the principles espoused by Paine, and they did so long after he had already been villified by most Americans and British. I loved this book, and I enjoyed reading about many of the people, such as Conway, who we rarely learn about. If you want to read a biography of Thomas Paine, there are several available. If you want to read a book which makes you appreciate those people who have stood up for the ideals found in The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason, then read this book. But don't forget to read the writings of Paine himself.

Not all who wander are lost: An exhilarating, fascinating diagonal trip through history.

This very readable book put me in mind of James Burke's wonderful Connections, but centers around the mortal remains and intellectual legacy of Thomas Paine. I love the usual sort of history, but these "diagonal" journeys, going off in strange directions, really help pull history together and illuminate the oddities that are usually left out. Whether or not we arrive at any definite place, the trip is well worth it. Looking at history as a purposeful march from there to here leaves out so many fascinating might-have-beens. We so often end up looking at earlier times merely as a prelude to ours, not seeing the perspective of earlier generations as their chaotic, multi-sided struggle for their own present and future. This is not for everyone: I find that many of my favorite books are lambasted by reviewers outraged that the author has not given us a clear and definitive answer to the identity of Shakespeare or Perkin Warbeck, the guilt of Lizzie Borden, the fate of the Princes in the Tower, but rather has tossed about ideas and possibilities. Perhaps it is too scary to contemplate that there may never be a final answers. This is not a biography of Paine, it begins with his final, ailing years and death. It is not for those who want a crisp, linear narrative. Paul Collins jumps between past and present as he tracks his subjects. This is a risky strategy, and I was often surprised to find myself in another era. On the whole, I think it worked very well - it created a vivid impression of the layers of history and the disappearance of the past. In some ways, it is a metaphor for history writing: conjuring what no longer exists. Collins moves around England and America trying to resolve the mystery of the fate of Paine's body. At the same time, he traces Paine as seen by later generations: the "author" of a posthumous autobiography, whose publisher employed John Brown before he went to Kansas and thence to Harper's Ferry. Along the way, Collins tells us about formerly famous people who are at best footnotes in our time; the invention of the indoor toilet; the function of the rag-and-bone man; a corpse as property; and a great deal about phrenology. This last topic is developed sympathetically at great length, stressing its original purpose as an aid to self-improvement. The reader who is not familiar with Paine should at least read a good encyclopedia article, but a full biography is probably not necessary. A mind-bending and thought-provoking book. The book is not really scholarly, that is, discussions of ideologies are informative but not in depth. In lieu of a bibliography or notes, the author has sections discussing the sources for each chapter, often imparting more fascinating tidbits along the way. An index would have been nice. For those who like the juggling of ideas and possibilities, I recommend Who Wrote Shakespeare? by John F. Michell, The Perfect Prince: Truth and Deception in Renaissance Europe by Anne Wroe

An Odd and Satisfying Read

I won't admit just how far I was into this book before I realized the title's a play on Hitchcock's movie "The Trouble With Harry." But it's a fitting tribute: like a Hitchcock movie, it's a twisting tale filled with rogues, oddballs, humor and even a McGuffin in the form of Tom Paine's body, which gets scattered in every direction possible. Paine himself only appears briefly though memorably before shuffling off his mortal coil. It's not a biography of Paine, which is fine because there's plenty of those already. It's something more unusual: a meditation on how one man's ideas carry on in unexpected ways long after he is gone. Collins has a whole cast of colorful and forgotten 19th century firebrands who were so inspired by Paine's work that some even had to possess a relic of their favorite rebel. There's also delightful cameos by greats like Darwin, Twain, and Whitman. Virtually all the history and anecdotes in this book were new to me. It's as if the author was determined to write something that didn't cover any of the same ground as anyone else, and the result is both ambitious and playful.

A wild ride through American history

Having tweaked the nose of the church in his lifetime, Thomas Paine was corpse non grata at the cemetery gates when he died. So his remains floated around for a hundred years, passing through the hands of a motley assortment of radicals, freethinkers, and nutcases. Collins' delicious wit brings this bizarre tale vividly to life. It's not your usual sort of history, and that's what makes it so enjoyable. Highly recommended.

A Common Sense Approach to Enjoying Political Philosophy

Paul Collins knows how to have fun with old books and he passes that madcap glee onto you, the reader. Consider his advice for securing privacy on mass transit,"It is a fact that if you want to be left alone on the subway, all you need to do is read a really beat-up old book.... You think I am joking--- but try it sometime. I root through my backpack and pull out of my bag the shabbiest, oldest-looking book imaginable. Its covers were once a pleasant marbled green, but now worn down to a barklike wooden color; every single page inside is water-stained brown. It appears to have been left at the bottom of a pond, then dragged behind a cart, and finally thrown off a high cliff." It's not often that you come upon a tome whose subject, history of political philosophy, has you laughing out loud at least once every couple of chapters. It's history, writ with wit, very enjoyable.