Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Search in google:
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. In bestselling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. America's first great publicist, he was 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. 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...The New York TimesIt is a thoroughly researched, crisply written, convincingly argued chronicle that is also studded with little nuggets of fresh information... Instead of Franklin's Boswell, Isaacson comes across as his Edward R. Murrow, diligently and often deftly interrogating the man while sifting through the veritable mountain of scholarship that has accumulated around him over the past two centuries. --Joseph J. Ellis
Ch. 1Benjamin Franklin and the Invention of America1Ch. 2Pilgrim's Progress: Boston, 1706-17235Ch. 3Journeyman: Philadelphia and London, 1723-172636Ch. 4Printer: Philadelphia, 1726-173252Ch. 5Public Citizen: Philadelphia, 1731-1748102Ch. 6Scientist and Inventor: Philadelphia, 1744-1751129Ch. 7Politician: Philadelphia, 1749-1756146Ch. 8Troubled Waters: London, 1757-1762175Ch. 9Home Leave: Philadelphia, 1763-1764206Ch. 10Agent Provocateur: London, 1765-1770219Ch. 11Rebel: London, 1771-1775252Ch. 12Independence: Philadelphia, 1775-1776290Ch. 13Courtier: Paris, 1776-1778325Ch. 14Bon Vivant: Paris, 1778-1785350Ch. 15Peacemaker: Paris, 1778-1785382Ch. 16Sage: Philadelphia, 1785-1790436Ch. 17Epilogue471Ch. 18Conclusions476Cast of Characters495Chronology503Currency Conversions507Acknowledgments509Sources and Abbreviations513Notes519Index567
