American Independence is a pathbreaking rhetorical history of the dramatic confluence of political events and discourse that turned, in only a few short months, thirteen disaffected but fiercely loyal colonies into "Free and Independent States." Author Benjamin Ponder focuses upon Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the vigorous debate sparked by the bestselling pamphlet to demonstrate the constitution of a distinctively American public during the first half of 1776. American Independence employs an integrative analysis of text and context to challenge longstanding scholarly assumptions about the ideological and cultural origins of the American Revolution.