Benjamin Franklin : An American Life

Rating:
Summary: A must-read for all Americans
Review: Ben Franklin is the defining American: grounded in middle-class pragmatism. Isaacson offers tremendous insight into what inspired and motivated a man that was respected the world over. What he did for our nation is best told in this book.

Rating:
Summary: The avatar of "leather-apron" pragmatisim...
Review: Clearly, Walter Isaacon's goal is to portray Benjamin Franklin with a whole new, sort of revisionistic realism. And he suceeds marvelously with this narrative that captures both the myth and pragmatic side of one of our more eccentric founding fathers. This is historical biography on a grand scale and surely will stand the test of time as the standard work on Franklin and, indeed on the founding of our nation.

What can be said of Franklin that hasn't been documented before? That he was at once an extraordinarily disciplined, virtuous man while maintaining an "everyday" humanistic side can not be argued. That he was, gratefully, a visionary who was in large part responsible for forming a type of government unheard of or unseen before in the annals of time is also unquestioned. That he had a unique mind and penchant for scientifically detailed analysis which served him and his time well and put him years ahead of his contemporaries is absolutely without doubt. The goal, then, of any new work on Franklin is to re-introduce these virtues to a new generation of readers and to attempt to seperate the man from the myth...this is the task that Isaacson performs amazingly well with this work. To call this an ordinary biography is to call McCullough's "Truman", Caro's "Master of the Senate" or Morris' "Theodore Rex" ordinary...this is the level of literary genius that Isaacson has achieved here in my opinion and it's a work that needs to be seriously considered by all historians or general readers.

Covered in narrative form, we see Isaacson build Franklin's story from his early days in Boston to his inspiring entrepreneurship in Philadelphia. His early work at the printing press and as an amatueur publisher lead him in becoming a local literary visionary. His "Poor Richard's Almanac" and other published works show Franklin to be the sort of personality that ultimately leads to greater "revolutionary" thinking later on. Isaacson also gives fair coverage to Franklin's ever growing scientific and social works activities as his inventions and improvements on items such as stoves and his organization of various groups ranging from fire departments to local lending libraries make him a leader in early American society. Able to retire at 40 years old (due to his famous frugality and industry), we then see the middle aged Frankilin become a major character on the world stage, first with his invention/discovery of the lightening rod and then, slowly, as a revolutionary activist. This activity leads of course to political aspirations and Franklin goes from a Pennsylvania delegate at the first Contenental Congress to diplomatic roles representing colonial interests in Great Britan. It's there that Franklin loses his passion and confidence in the royal government and where this book really takes off.

Franklin hesitantly refutes the Stamp Act, returns to America to become a leading figure in the revolt and then returns to England where he starts his service as a career diplomat...it's in this period that Franklin becomes the world leader and thinker that makes him such a renowned figure and also where he forms his vision of our ultimate form of government. Isaacson deftly weaves all this into incredibly readable detail while never sacrificing comprehensiveness. Franklin's personal life, displayed with the generous use of many personal letters and diaries show a different side that form a personality that's rich, somewhat flawed and always entertaining...he's certainly able to "wink" at us from this lofty Founding Father position and Isaacson melds all this into the narrative.

Frankiln's work at securing first the French intervention into the Revolutionary War and ultimately the peace treaty with England necessarily make up the greater portion of the book, while his activities in France also add to his legendary mystique. Interaction and correspondance with famous personalities such as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington are offset with practical letters to his wife and children/grandchildren that give a unique biographical balance and add a richness to the story not seen in many historical accounts.

To say that Franklin was just a diplomat or just a scientist or just a founding father is really cliche...he was all these things and more and Walter Isaacson combines all this into a beautiful narrative that does justice to Franklin and to history in general...I would recommend this work to any general reader or historian and I'm sure that most would agree that "Benjamin Franklin" stands out and is not your ordinary history book.

Rating:
Summary: The First American Renaissance Man
Review: Walter Isaacson's biography, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, recalls the genius, the drive and the wisdom that Benjamin Franklin brought to the birth of the United States.

Franklin developed his innate curiosity and empowered his always practical, often noble ambition by becoming a voracious reader and prolific writer in his early childhood. He learned to read from his father Josiah's bookshelf, choosing books like Plutarch's Lives and Cotton Mather's Bonifacius: Essays to do Good. He read essays by Joseph Addison and Richard Steele in London's The Spectator, then recreated them in his own words. "I sometimes had the pleasure of fancying that in certain particulars of small import I had been lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and this encouraged me to think that I might possibly in time come to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely ambitious."

Instead of study at Harvard with many of his peers, Franklin acquired his advanced education as an adolescent printing apprentice to his older brother James at James' Boston weekly, the New England Courant from 1718 to 1723. While he was learning the printer's trade in the Courant pressroom, Franklin tapped his innovative imagination to create the pseudonymous penname, Mrs. Silence Dogood, under which he wrote 14 essays that he submitted for publication anonymously to his brother, thus concealing his writing talent from James' jealous insecurity. Franklin's female point-of-view from which he wrote often during his life cleverly analyzed topics like the conflict between church and state, relief for single women and the "proud, self-conceited great blockheads" graduating from Harvard at the time. Isaacson says Franklin's Mrs. Dogood became the most popular writer in colonial America.

In addition to printing and writing anonymously for the Courant, Benjamin even served as publisher of the paper for three issues when James ran afoul of the Massachusetts colony's General Court for publishing a religiously inflammatory piece. Thus it was that Franklin began his professional life in the late 18th century as a Boston newspaper printer, writer and publisher, all before the age of 18. He was later to operate a very successful printing business and publish his own paper in Philadelphia, The Pennsylvania Gazette and entertain America annually for 25 years beginning in 1732 with Poor Richard's Almanac. It is little wonder many consider Benjamin Franklin the Father of American Journalism.

Even though it was his professional foundation and lifelong pursuit, journalism was far from Franklin's only career. He evolved into America's first Renaissance Man by re-inventing himself frequently throughout his life. Franklin was extraordinarily successful as inventor and scientist, as businessman, politician and diplomat, as educator, librarian and philosopher, as rebel, peacemaker and colleague of patriots, statesmen and tradesmen in America, England and France. Franklin creations that survive today include the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731 when he was 27 and the first non-sectarian college in America that opened in 1751 and became known 40 years later as the University of Pennsylvania. It is this remarkable, life-long and usually successful personal re-invention that makes Franklin such a dominant character and inspirational role model in American history.

Franklin was 70 when he was selected a member of the Second Continental Congress that convened in 1775 in Philadelphia. He contributed substantively to the Congress, including a proposed set of Articles of Confederation for the new country. He also served as editor to Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence.

Isaacson explains how Franklin can be said to hold another honorable seat in U.S. history, that of the father of the American Middle Class. Few of our country's founding fathers felt comfort with democracy as fully as did Franklin. As a result, America's down-to-earth shopkeepers, tradesmen and backwoodsmen revered him. His Autobiography was the one book Davy Crockett took with him to his death at the Alamo.

Although raised in the Puritan epicenter of Boston, Franklin was a freethinking moralist who practiced religious tolerance while pursuing lives in business, science and politics. Yale scholar A. Whitney Griswold writes that Franklin's life shows, "what Puritan habits detached from Puritan beliefs were capable of achieving." Francis, Lord Jeffrey, a founder of the Edinburgh Review, was high in his praise of Franklin. "This self-taught American is the most rational, perhaps, of all philosophers," he said. "He never loses sight of common sense in any of his speculations."

Although not without his critics, Franklin drew high praise from several quarters. Herman Melville wrote, "Having carefully weighed the world, Franklin could act in any part of it." Emerson put Franklin in rarified company: "Franklin was one of the most sensible men that ever lived ... more useful, more moral and more pure" than Socrates.

Isaacson says Franklin was always open to different opinions, unwavering in his opposition to arbitrary authority. He believed strongly that rights and power were based not on the happenstance of heritage but on merit, virtue and hard work. He felt he could best serve God by serving his fellow man and made his choices accordingly. Above all, Isaacson says, Franklin was unwavering and at times heroic in his "faith in the wisdom of the common citizen that was manifest in an appreciation for democracy and an opposition to all forms of tyranny."

Benjamin Franklin is an American hero. Walter Isaacson's biography of Franklin is a fine piece of scholarship, especially worthy of study by all who aspire to lives in business, public service and yes, journalism.

Rating:
Summary: Almost a perfect biography
Review: I found the book interesting, and thoroughly researched. But I had the recurring impression that I was either attending a university lecture or reading someone's doctoral dissertation. Most disconcerting was the occasional coy reference by the author to "remember that name, it comes up later."
Come, now: That does not belong in a serious work, and I was under the impression such was the author's aspiration.
For a perfect biography, read "John Adams" by David McCullough.

Rating:
Summary: This is a pretty dull Biography
Review: The author tries hard to convince you that Franklin is this superstar world leader, but just doesn't sell it very well. I believe Franklin is everything that history makes him out to be, but this book is written in such a dull manner that you never really get it. I guarantee everyone who has read this book paused halfway through it and were relieved to discover that the last 50 pages are appendices and such ending the misery much earlier.

Rating:
Summary: Larger than life...
Review: I have always been interested in Thomas Jefferson, and always believed that he was the true genius and renaissance man of his time. It wasn't until reading Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life that I discovered how underrated Franklin is in the recording of our nations history. There are many reasons for the overlooking of Franklin in our past. First, he wasn't a young buck at the founding of our nation--unlike his much younger colleagues including Jefferson, Adams and Washington. He never became president, unlike the three names just mentioned. Also, he did much of his work for the nation behind the scenes and aboard--first in England trying to change conditions that brought about the Revolution, and then in France trying to convince the French to step into the war on our side. He was also influential in negotiating a peace settlement with the British.

Despite all his success, Franklin always considered himself first and foremost a printer. He was proud that through hard work and effort, he was able to overcome his lack of formal schooling and become successful. He didn't believe that a man should receive automatic stature in society based on his name or position. He wasn't a religious man in terms of organized religion, but was a firm believer that you served God by serving man. He constantly worked on his "virtues" and kept a list of how he fared on 13 different ones each week.

I have always thought of Jefferson as the primary inventor of this era, but Jefferson's inventions were mainly mechanical in nature. It was Franklin who was the true scientist of his time. He experimented with the relationship between colors and heat, theorized (correctly) on how colds were spread, invented bifocals, figured out how nor'easters traveled, experimented with how oil affects water, and invented the Franklin Stove, the lightening rod and the armonica. Of course, he is most remembered for his experiments with electricity. Much of the electrical vocabulary we still use today was first coined by Franklin.

Franklin was also a man of great convictions, and used his pen and his presses to forward his beliefs. Later in life, he became an abolitionist and fought for the end of slavery. Still, he wasn't a man without faults. He was especially cold and neglectful toward his family. However, all in all, Isaacson gives a thorough overview of Franklin's life, trying to balance the public man with the private one. The one major flaw I found in this book is that I felt Isaacson wraps things up too quickly at the end at the expense of the Constitutional Convention. Also, many events could have been explained in greater detail. But overall, it is a great biography that provides good insight into this giant of a man.

Rating:
Summary: not worthy of your time
Review: This is a very boring book that is written in a way that will frustrate any reader.

Rating:
Summary: What a Life!!!
Review: Most of us know Franklin as the man on the $50 dollar bill, co-author of The Declaration, the kite flyer and perhaps as the creator of a few of Poor Richard's sayings. Of course he was those things, but he was much more. Isaacson demonstrates the true genius of Dr. Franklin and the scope of his life's activities whose impact we still feel today.

Franklin's accomplishments and contributions to our national identity were truly amazing. From humble beginnings, he became a wealthy printer whose influence on 18th century thought was remarkable. On one page, Isaacson demonstrates the impact of Poor Richard by citing a littany of wise sayings that are well know today and remain as appropriate as they were when Franklin published them.

After retiring from the printing business, Franklin moved on to other pursuits including scientist, inventor, diplomat, revolutionary and sage. He was, at various times, the toast of England, of France and of the Colonies. His accomplishments in any of his fields of endeavor would have qualified him as a great man. The totality of his accomplishments is almost beyond comprehension.

I have often wondered what historical figure I would most like to have known. I now believe that Benjamin Franklin would be that person.

Rating:
Summary: More than just flying kites
Review: For those who thought our forefathers were stodgy and old-fashioned, "Benjamin Franklin: An Amercian Life" is for you. This portrait of a remarkable man who had his hands in just about everything is extremely well-written. Isaacson clearly knows his stuff and not only that, knows how to write about it so that it's elevated to the realms of entertaining reading. The most enjoyable and enlightening aspect of Isaacson's book was learning what Franklin "wasn't." Not as nationalistic as we might think, Franklin saw himself as a loyal citizen of England. He even shunned Independence Day at one time. And there's more examples that will dispel some of the "myths" surrounding this great man. But the most intriguing aspect of the book, for me, was the writing. Kudos to Mr. Isaacson for this great book.

Also recommended: Stonewall Jackson, Bark of the Dogwood by McCrae, and The Secret Life of Bees by Kidd

Rating:
Summary: An American Fulcrum
Review: Franklin's extraordinarily heroic and active life is well-portrayed in this biography by Walter Isaacson, but the biographer gets one central thing wrong. He repeatedly paints Franklin as the first and best member of the American middle class, by which he means that Franklin avoided excesses, worked hard, got involved in his community, avoided argument, and never bogged himself down with dogma.

Franklin did all these things, it's true. But more than being just a member of the middle class, he was a member of the unusual class of people who live to solve problems: whether they are commercial, political, social, familial, scientific or practical. Franklin's life should be envied...you get that from this biography. But you get it despite the author's mistaken emphasis.