The Mark Steel Lectures

A profile of 18th-century political activist Thomas Paine , whose book The Rights of Man helped inspire the American War of Independence.

Surely Britain's greatest unknown international revolutionary, best-selling author and hobbyist bridge builder, Norfolk born corset-maker's son Thomas Paine wrote the Rights of Man and helped inspire the American War of Independence. Thereafter he became the Secretary for Foreign Affairs in a government that hated his country of birth. He then went to France and escaped the guillotine by accident, after having failed to sell a bridge he built over a field in London.

One of Mark Steel's great unsung radical heroes, this comedy lecture series shines a light on a little known (in Britain) hero on two continents.