Tom Paine's Iron Bridge cover art

Tom Paine's Iron Bridge

Building a United States

Preview
Free with 30-day trial
Prime logo New to Audible Prime Member exclusive:
2 credits with free trial
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Tom Paine's Iron Bridge

Written by: Edward G. Gray
Narrated by: Tom Perkins
Free with 30-day trial

₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹668.00

Buy Now for ₹668.00

About this listen

Thomas Jefferson praised Tom Paine as the greatest political writer of the age. The author of Common Sense and Rights of Man, Paine helped make revolutions in America and France. But beyond his inspiring calls to action, Paine harbored a deeper political vision for his adopted country. It was embodied in an architectural project that he spent decades planning: an iron bridge to span the Schuylkill River at Philadelphia.

The bridge was Paine's answer to the political puzzle of the new nation: how to sustain a republic as large and geographically fragmented as the United States. Among its patrons were other giants of the time, including Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke, Paine's ideological opponent.

Set against the background of the American Revolution, the story of his iron bridge reveals a new Tom Paine and connects this revolutionary to the vast program of internal improvements that soon transformed America.

©2016 Edward G. Gray. Recorded by arrangement with W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books
Americas Engineering History & Culture Politicians Politics & Activism Revolution & Founding United States
No reviews yet