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Release Date: 2002-03-12
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| Features• ISBN13: 9780385495400
• Condition: New
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Large Detailed Book on the Amazing life of Benjamin FranklinThis book is literally two volumes on Franklin made into one that provides just about everything you wanted to know about this extraordinary man. A truly amazing rags to riches story starting his voyage by fleeing from his brother's printing shop where he was literally an indentured servant and ends up in Philadelphia. The author provides an amazing amount of detail on Franklin's life with a good view of his personality that is amicable that although the leading printer in his new City cannot employ him, refers him to a competitor's printer while temporarily housing him. This is a very large book primarily due to Franklin's exhausting accomplishments from his advances in the print world eventually to run hi sown company to his experiments in electricity that make him a renown scientist all over the western world. His advances include serving as a colonel in the militia during, starting a Fire Department, running the postal service in a wide section of the colonies, representing serving colonial charters and colonies as a representative in England while being successful in assisting in the repeal of the Stamp Act. Franklin, as noted by the author, has such good standing that his son is named governor of New Jersey by the crown. As noted in the fascinating prologue, when Franklin, serving as a colonial representative, is humiliated in Parliament over the release of confidential letters from the English government, England loses its best friend to America. In addition, as the author notes, Franklin's unique ability to negotiate, as he later proves with the France, made him a necessary ally that England needed desperately. I found the first 500 pages the most interesting since the author fills any void that a reader may not know of Franklin's doings before the revolution and that is appropriate because his accomplishments are so immense. I was a little surprised that there wasn't more detail on Franklin and Jefferson regarding the Declaration of Independence; however, Franklin acted more as an editor enhancing the document and his skills were so great, his efforts, although substantial were not time consuming as they were proficient. Another area that may have required more detail was the relationship between Franklin and his wife. Franklin spends years away from home while his wife did not accompany him to Europe and when ill, Franklin is too far away to return in time for her death. The author covers Franklin so well that he blankets his every move; this may seem more of a challenge for those wanting a briefer account of Franklin's life. However, if you are looking for the most detailed biography of Franklin, then this book will enrich you.
The First American; The Life and Times of Benjamin FranklinI really enjoyed reading this biography of Franklin as it was not only very informative but easy to read, moving along like a good novel. There were so many areas of his life I was unaware of until I read this book. A self made man who started with next to nothing to become one of the wealthier Pennsylvanians and the most influential Americans of the period, we are usually left in the dark as to how he acquired his wealth and influence. The author also, using Franklin's own writings, lets you look into how his brilliant scientific mind worked. Some of the answers he suspected explained questions of the time, wouldn't be proven correct for two hundred years when we would finally develop the technology to discover and prove their causes. The look into his family life was wonderful also and his description of Franklin and his son William proving lightning was electricity with his kite and key experiment made me feel I was right there watching. In a time when more focus is given to his sex life than to his accomplishments it was refreshing to find just how little there actually is to hang this distortion on. While the author clearly shows that he did have some extra marital affairs, most of them appear to be in his youth before he was married. As far as the ones he's most 'famous' for in his later years, the correspondences between Franklin and these women clearly show that he struck out every time he came to bat. They also show that it wasn't for lack of trying on his part. The close look into his work as a representative to London for several Colonies before the war, and his work at the Constitutional Convention after the war, were fascinating views into the struggles and issues of these key moments in our nations history.
In the end I walked away from this book feeling like I actually got to know Franklin the person, a wonderful man and a beautiful mind, applied properly at the right place and time in history. A man who's sense of charity and duty to his fellow man alone would have fixed him in our pantheon had he never ventured into politics.
This should be a lot shorter and sweeterThis book has so much information on Franklin that I just dont care about. It even has information on people who interacted with Franklin, and some of their doings and thoughts. Lots of quoting letters and this and that, it gets really boring. This is not at all like "John Adams" by McCullough. I really dont want to know about every interaction and argument he had with everyone he ever met in his life. When you have to make yourself read when you really dont want to, you know the book is not very engaging.
If your into this mans life hardcore, this is your book, otherwise look for something else.
Thorough and detailedThis is an excellent and extremely thorough biography of Benjamin Franklin. It's a long book, which goes into great and occasionally tedious detail of every aspect of Franklin's life. My only complaints are more with the breadth of Franklin's experiences than any real failing on the part of the author. Franklin the scientist, soldier, printer, adventurer, philosopher, journalist, social activist, bon vivant and ladies' man are all fascinating portraits. Franklin the politician and ambassador are at times crushingly dull.
The First American: The Life & Times of Benjamin FranklinHave not finished novel, but so far a really interesting & great read. I prefer fiction and have rarely read historical novels, but this one is really, really good!
Product DescriptionHe was the foremost American of his day, yet today he is little more than a mythic caricature in the public imagination. Benjamin Franklin, perhaps the pivotal figure in colonial and revolutionary America, comes vividly to life in this masterly biography.
Wit, diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America’s first Renaissance man. From penniless runaway to highly successful printer, from ardently loyal subject of Britain to architect of an alliance with France that ensured America’s independence, Franklin went from obscurity to become one of the world’s most admired figures, whose circle included the likes of Voltaire, Hume, Burke, and Kant. Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius. A much needed reminder of Franklin’s greatness and humanity, The First American is a work of meticulous scholarship that provides a magnificent tour of a legendary historical figure, a vital era in American life, and the countless arenas in which the protean Franklin left his legacy.
Amazon.com ReviewBenjamin Franklin may have been the most remarkable American ever to live: a printer, scientist, inventor, politician, diplomat, and--finally--an icon. His life was so sweeping that this comprehensive biography by H.W. Brands at times reads like a history of the United States during the 18th century. Franklin was at the center of America's transition from British colony to new nation, and was a kind of Founding Grandfather to the Founding Fathers; he was a full generation older than George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry, and they all viewed him with deep respect. "Of those patriots who made independence possible, none mattered more than Franklin, and only Washington mattered as much," writes Brands (author of a well-received Teddy Roosevelt biography, T.R.: The Last Romantic). Franklin was a complex character who sometimes came up a bit short in the personal virtue department, once commenting, "That hard-to-be-governed passion of youth had hurried me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way." When he married, another woman was already pregnant with his child--a son he took into his home and had his wife raise. Franklin is best remembered for other things, of course. His still-famous Poor Richard's Almanac helped him secure enough financial freedom as a printer to retire and devote himself to the study of electricity (which began, amusingly, with experiments on chickens). His mind never rested: He invented bifocals, the armonica (a musical instrument made primarily of glass), and, in old age, a mechanical arm that allowed him to reach books stored on high shelves. He served American interests as a diplomat in Europe; without him, France might not have intervened in the American Revolution. He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He possessed a sense of humor, too. In 1776, when John Hancock urged the colonies to "hang together," Franklin is said to have commented, "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." Franklin's accomplishments were so numerous and varied that they threaten to read like a laundry list. Yet Brands pours them into an engrossing narrative, and they leap to life on these pages as the grand story of an exceptional man. The First American is an altogether excellent biography. --John J. Miller
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