Gordon S. Wood, in The New York Review of Books (June 8,1995), 250 West 57th St., New York, N.Y. 10107.
He was the author of Common Sense (1776), the most influential pamphlet of the Ameri- can Revolution, and of other stirring works, including an essay that famously began: "These are the times that try men's souls." He labored in behalf of liberty and the American Revolution "with as much effort as any man living," no less an authority than Thomas Jefferson recalled in 1801....