Book Description
Benjamin Franklin is the Founding Father who winks at us. An
ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from
leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of
flesh rather than of marble. In bestselling author Walter
Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why
Franklin seems to turn to us from history's stage with eyes that
twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. By bringing
Franklin to life, Isaacson shows how he helped to define both his
own time and ours.
He was, during his 84-year
life, America's best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and
business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical --
though not most profound -- political thinkers. He proved by
flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a
rod to tame it. He sought practical ways to make stoves less smoky
and commonwealths less corrupt.
He organized neighborhood
constabularies and international alliances, local lending
libraries and national legislatures. He combined two types of
lenses to create bifocals and two concepts of representation to
foster the nation's federal compromise. He was the only man who
shaped all the founding documents of America: the Albany Plan of
Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance
with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution.
And he helped invent America's unique style of homespun humor,
democratic values, and philosophical pragmatism.
But the most interesting thing
that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.
America's first great publicist, he was, in his life and in his
writings, consciously trying to create a new American archetype.
In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it
in public, and polished it for posterity.
Through it all, he trusted the
hearts and minds of his fellow "leather-aprons" more than he did
those of any inbred elite. He saw middle-class values as a source
of social strength, not as something to be derided. His guiding
principle was a "dislike of everything that tended to debase the
spirit of the common people." Few of his fellow founders felt this
comfort with democracy so fully, and none so intuitively.
In this colorful and intimate
narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing
life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a
statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. He chronicles
Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and
grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the
ladies of Paris. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the
American character and why he has a particular resonance in the
twenty-first century.
