The American Crisis is a pamphlet series contemporaneous with the early parts of the American Revolution. Their main purpose was to inspire colonists to support the American Revolutionary War. Paine's writings bolstered the morale of the American colonists, appealed to the English people's consideration of the war, clarified the issues at stake in the war, and denounced the advocates of a negotiated peace.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist, and revolutionary. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, he authored the two most influential pamphlets of the revolutionary era, Common Sense and The Rights of Men.