By W. E. WOODWARD

For about a hundred and fifty years Tom Paine has been a target for abuse. Much of it has come from ignorance, and the clods of mental dirt that are flung when Paine’s name is mentioned are often cast by people who have never read anything that he wrote, and who know nothing about him except his name, has been called an atheist, a hater of Christ and a man steeped in sin. These lying epithets have become so deeply imbedded in the minds of men and women that they may never be wholly effaced, for popular Eate^like "popular ^steem^—furnishes its own nourishment and grows with the pas- ~sage~bf time.

E.P. Dutton & Company, 1945, 368p.

By Adolph Caso

Beccarias little book, On Crimes and Punishments, was so influential that many nations of Europe changed parts of their constitutions while the author was still alive. In America of the revolutionary period, the little book was more influential than any other single book, its spirit incorporated in documents such as the Declarations of Cause and of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. John Adams quoted from it as early as 1768; later, the same Adams quotes Beccaria in both English and in Italian. Jefferson made extensive usage of the book, as did many other prominent Americans of this period. It may be a surprise to many students and historians alike that Beccaria’s little book was published in America long before any book of men such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Montesquieu, to name just a few.

Boston Branden Press Publishers, 1975, 279p.