Benjamin
Franklin:
An American Life
by Walter Isaacson
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.
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Editorial
Reviews
From
Publishers Weekly
Following
closely on the heels of Edmund Morgan's
justly acclaimed Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson's
longer biography easily holds its own.
How do the two books differ? Isaacson's
is more detailed; it lingers over such
matters as the nature of Franklin's complex
family circumstances and his relations
with others, and it pays closer attention
to each of his extraordinary achievements.
Morgan's is more subtle and reflective.
Each in its different way is superb. Isaacson
(now president of the Aspen Institute,
he is the former chairman of CNN and a
Henry Kissinger biographer) has a keen
eye for the genius of a man whose fingerprints
lie everywhere in our history.
The
oldest, most distinctive and multifaceted
of the founders, Franklin remains as mysterious
as Jefferson. After examining the large
body of existing Franklin scholarship
as skillfully and critically as any scholar,
Isaacson admits that his subject always
"winks at us" to keep us at
bay-which of course is one reason why
he's so fascinating. Unlike, say, David
McCullough's John Adams, which seeks to
restore Adams to public affection, this
book has no overriding agenda except to
present the story of Franklin's life.
Unfortunately, for all its length, it's
a book of connected short segments without
artful, easy transitions So whether this
fresh and lively work will replace Carl
Van Doren's beloved 1938 Benjamin Franklin
in readers' esteem remains to be seen.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information,
Inc.
...Isaacson's
most impressive chapter, a little tour
de force of historical synthesis, focuses
on Franklin's role during the Paris peace
negotiations that ended the War of Independence.
Again, this is bloody and well-trampled
ground, littered with the bodies of several
generations of historians....He somehow
manages to sift his way through the diplomatic
debris and recover Franklin's exquisite
sense of the competing objectives among
the American, British and French delegations,
all the while recognizing that John Adams
and John Jay were correct to insist, against
Franklin's instincts, on a separate bargain
with the British that left the French
marooned and unrewarded. Joseph P. Ellis,
New York Times
Amazon.com
Benjamin Franklin, writes journalist and
biographer Walter Isaacson, was that rare
Founding Father who would sooner wink
at a passer-by than sit still for a formal
portrait. What's more, Isaacson relates
in this fluent and entertaining biography,
the revolutionary leader represents a
political tradition that has been all
but forgotten today, one that prizes pragmatism
over moralism, religious tolerance over
fundamentalist rigidity, and social mobility
over class privilege. That broadly democratic
sensibility allowed Franklin his contradictions,
as Isaacson shows. Though a man of lofty
principles, Franklin wasn't shy of using
sex to sell the newspapers he edited and
published; though far from frivolous,
he liked his toys and his mortal pleasures;
and though he sometimes gave off a simpleton
image, he was a shrewd and even crafty
politician. Isaacson doesn't shy from
enumerating Franklin’s occasional
peccadilloes and shortcomings, in keeping
with the iconoclastic nature of our time--none
of which, however, stops him from considering
Benjamin Franklin "the most accomplished
American of his age," and one of
the most admirable of any era. And here’s
one bit of proof: as a young man, Ben
Franklin regularly went without food in
order to buy books. His example, as always,
is a good one--and this is just the book
to buy with the proceeds from the grocery
budget. --Gregory McNamee
From
Booklist
Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and even
Adams stare down at you from Mt. Olympus.
But Benjamin Franklin has always seemed
the most accessible of our Founding Fathers.
He looks out benignly from our $100 bill.
He dispenses grandfatherly wisdom spiced
with humor from Poor Richard's Almanac.
Of course, Franklin was a complicated
and interesting personality, as this book
illustrates. Isaacson, formerly the CEO
of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine,
is currently president of the Aspen Institute.
He has written a chronological biography
that pays due tribute to Franklin's genius
while revealing his harder edges. Franklin
was clearly driven and supremely ambitious.
In serving his ambition, he could be manipulative
and a shameless self-promoter. His personal
and political loyalties often shifted,
yet he never forgave the "betrayal"
when his illegitimate son remained loyal
to Britain. Jay Freeman
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