Description
Book SynopsisIn this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Einstein and Steve Jobs, shows how the most fascinating of America''s founders helped define our national character.Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us, the one who seems made of flesh rather than marble. In a sweeping narrative that follows Franklin’s life from Boston to Philadelphia to London and Paris and back, Walter Isaacson chronicles the adventures of the runaway apprentice who became, over the course of his eighty-four-year life, America’s best writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, and business strategist, as well as one of its most practical and ingenious political leaders. He explores the wit behind
Poor Richard’s Almanac and the wisdom behind the Declaration of Independence, the new nation’s alliance with France, the treaty that ended the Revolution, and the compromises that created a near-perfect Constitution.
In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin’s amazing life, showing how he helped to forge the American national identity and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.
Trade ReviewThe Washington Post Book World The most readable full-length Franklin biography available.
The New Yorker Energetic, entertaining, and worldly.
The New York Times In its common sense, clarity and accessibility, it is a fitting reflection of Franklin's sly pragmatism....This may be the book that most powerfully drives a new pendulum swing of the Franklin reputation.
The New York Times Book Review A thoroughly researched, crisply written, convincingly argued chronicle.
Table of ContentsCONTENTSCHAPTER ONE
Benjamin Franklin and the Invention of AmericaCHAPTER TWO
Pilgrim's Progress: Boston, 1706-1723CHAPTER THREE
Journeyman: Philadelphia and London, 1723-1726CHAPTER FOUR
Printer: Philadelphia, 1726-1732CHAPTER FIVE
Public Citizen: Philadelphia, 1731-1748CHAPTER SIX
Scientist and Inventor: Philadelphia, 1744-1751CHAPTER SEVEN
Politician: Philadelphia, 1749-1756CHAPTER EIGHT
Troubled Waters: London, 1757-1762CHAPTER NINE
Home Leave: Philadelphia, 1763-1764CHAPTER TEN
Agent Provocateur: London, 1765-1770CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rebel: London, 1771-1775CHAPTER TWELVE
Independence: Philadelphia, 1775-1776CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Courtier: Paris, 1776-1778CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bon Vivant: Paris, 1778-1785CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Peacemaker: Paris, 1778-1785CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sage: Philadelphia, 1785-1790CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EpilogueCHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Conclusions
Cast of Characters
Chronology
Currency Conversions
Acknowledgments
Sources and Abbreviations
Notes
Index
