Are you feeling disgusted and cynical watching Republican lawmakers as they grip the wheel in the game of chicken that could wreck the nation’s credit rating and leave working families to salvage the debris? 

If so, says history professor Harvey J. Kaye, it may be time to uplift your spirits with Common Sense, Tom Paine style. In a column on the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute’s New Deal 2.0 blog, Kaye writes:

Paine’s first great work not only inspired the founding generation to make history. It also encouraged generations of progressives from freethinkers, abolitionists, and suffragists to labor unionists, populists, and socialists to redeem America’s exceptional purpose and promise and carry on the fight to extend and deepen freedom, equality, and democracy.

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Kaye, the Ben and Joyce Rosenberg Professor of Democracy and Justice Studies and director of the Center for History and Social Change at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, says “Common Sense will remind you of what it means to be an American”:

and will give you the strength to deal with both right-wing rants and “creeping cynicism.” Plus, at just under fifty pages it is not only guaranteed to be low priced in these trying economic times, it is also easy to take along to the beach….

Click here to read more on Paine from Kaye.