Rating: 
Summary: Maybe the worst biography I've read.
Review: Skipping over trivial events such as Franklin's actual birth and death, this book gleans over the seminal events of Franklin's time, and Franklin's lfe. I understand this is a SHORT biography, but I am confused why the author obsesses w/ "Franklin the British Imperialist", while ignoring "Franklin the Legend". I got the point about Franklin seeing himself as a good English subject after the first 20 pages. Oh, and as for all of those memorable quotes that have been attributed to Franklin? Not a one in this book. Lastly, who edited this book? There were more typos then I've ever seen in a book of this length. Skip it folks.
Rating: 
Summary: The excitement of Franklin
Review: The book is an approachable appreciation of Franklin's energetic and very full life. Franklin is a fascinating renaissance man, jack of all trades, and master of same: printing, publishing, hospitals, libraries, stoves, fire companies and insurance, schooling, postmaster, jails, militia, and of course electricity. The first chapter is deliberately eclectic, jumping back and forth through Franklin's life to establish certain landmarks and themes in his life: transitional times, his love of constant and compelling enquiry, controlling a brilliant and irreverent intellect, and the public utility of his innovations and service to a public changing as least as rapidly as he. Here Morgan, I think, badly confounds Franklin's public service (meaning his role in coercive government) with the public usefulness of his ldeas and inventions. I believe Morgan errs in speculating that Franklin was driven by Charity (love of the public) although Franklin in fact omits it from his List of Virtues (pp. 22-23). Rather it is clear that Franklin acted as if what others might call charity sprang from a personal Virtue of usefulness to oneself and fair dealing with others--that is, tantamount to classic revolutionary liberalism untainted by the socialist belief in higher public good determined by the state and enforced by terror, as emerged in his beloved France only three years after his death. Morgan traces the roots of the American Revolution to attempts to impose and devolve taxation without representation in the English Parliament, of unequal citizenship among English speakers on the mere basis of where you lived. But for the arrogantly parochial minds of British lord ministers they would have kept a growing America, and probably their empire. Morgan thinks Franklin believed in conditional, negotiable rights, rather than Inalienable Rights as did most Americans and certainly the firebrands like Adams and Revere (who hardly figure in this book). This is particularly apropos the current debate between Liberty and Security in a world of non-state terrorism. The book includes a chronology, list of people, and an index only of people mentioned. The only sources cited are Franklin's writings, a strange limit on Morgan's scholarship. A subtle touch is that YUP chose Fournier as the typeface, designed by one of Franklin's good friends in France. The "antique" deckle-edged paper is not so successful, as it is hard to page through.
Rating: 
Summary: The Essentials of an Essential American
Review: There is probably no American that deserves a big biography more than Benjamin Franklin. To be sure, he has many, as befits a writer, printer, scientist, inventor, pamphleteer, statesman, and Founding Father. Now there is a remarkable small one, _Benjamin Franklin_ (Yale University Press) by Edmund S. Morgan. The author has won various prizes for history writing, but it is clear that he loves this subject. The book was begun as a preface to a digital edition of Franklin's works. Morgan writes that scholars have struggled to come up with every scrap that Franklin wrote, and it will all eventually fill around fifty printed volumes. It is all now "available on one small disk, a product of those inconceivable discoveries he dreamt of." Morgan has read all the disk "but not much else" in order to write a purposely short book (300 pages) as "a letter of introduction to a man worth knowing, worth spending time with." This is not a standard biography; we do not learn about his forebears and his birth, nor do we attend him at his death. There is no speculation about the mother of his son William, and little about his common-law wife Deborah. This is not because of restrictions of length, but more because Morgan has limited himself to what Franklin wrote and did publicly, and his book works perfectly as introduction, or re-introduction.
Morgan says that Franklin is hard to know, in part, because "it is so hard to distinguish his natural impulses from his principles." For a focus on his main endeavors, however, especially his political ones, this biography does very well. Those who think all the founding fathers were firebrands insisting on independence at the first unfair tax will learn that Franklin was England's passionate friend. He wanted America and England to stay together and was reluctant to admit that Parliament was not going to change its ways. Although he had had many friends in Britain, the government did not value him at all. Philadelphians and Americans in general had a closer idea of his original genius. But it was in France that he encountered public adulation from all levels. John Adams preferred more traditional power games, and disliked the French lionization of Franklin as a hero and saint. (Adams really had his vanity bruised; he said that Franklin's life in France was "a Scene of continual Discipation.") Franklin did not like controversy; he thought polemics were wasted energy. He did not join a church (although he was a joiner) for like most of the best-remembered Founding Fathers, Franklin was not a Christian but a deist who, as befits his practical views, knew that gaining morality and virtue was the important thing, and the means by which they are gained (which some said could only be by Christianity) was no matter at all. This was heresy to the religious revival of the time that said faith was everything.
Living with virtue was important, but living usefully was Franklin's great aim. (He also aimed to have fun; long after he had retired from the printing business, for as long as he could physically manage the difficult press machines, he remained his own printer, issuing his sly jokes and bagatelles.) It is hard to imagine anyone who achieved an aim of utility more fully. This volume reports mostly on his political usefulness to the new nation, but almost all aspects of his life were committed to making improvements. His classic _Autobiography_ is a record of self improvement, but it is obviously written with the aim of providing means and an example for the improvements of others. His scientific endeavors were not just theoretical sallies; they produced lightning rods and fireplaces that benefited humanity the world over. His founding of a volunteer corps of firefighters and of a public library are legendary. Concentrating on his political thought and social endeavors, Morgan's book is an attractive introduction to one of the brightest and most lovable minds ever.
Rating: 
Summary: Do wish for more
Review: This book does mention a lot about Benjamin Franklin, but I do wish it gave more details on his life. For example: he invented the idea of Bifocals I believe, but nowhere did I see that mentioned in the book. It mentioned his personal life a lot (perhaps too much) as well as his political life. However so much left uncovered for such a brilliant man...
Rating:
Summary: A medicine for insomnia
Review: This book is terrible. You'll be asleep within 10 minutes of opening it, regardless of what page. Look elsewhere if you're interested in Franklin.
Rating:
Summary: Excellant Political Biography
Review: This is a excellant political biography of one of America's greatest and most influencial founders. What is not is a biography of Benjamin Franklin. I was a little disappointed after hoping to learn more about one of my favorite historical figures. The cover description may be a little misleading, but in fairness it never claims to be a full biography and after seeing the compact size I was questioning its content before turning the first page. It only makes vague reference to Franklin's illegimate son and gives almost no detail into the strained relations with his other son. Actually gives very little detail about any of Franklin's personal life. If your interest is the political history of the founding of America and Franklin's accomplishments in England and France during the war this will be a great source. If your interest is more the personal story and life of Franklin, pass this one up.
Rating:
Summary: Love this book
Review: This is a first-rate study of Franklin. The author's facts are correct, his interpretations interesting, and his prose beautiful.
- Ed Renehan
Rating:
Summary: Understanding Franklin
Review: This is a very excellent introduction for anyone with an interest in Franklin. I concentrates mostly on trying to understand the man, what and how he thought, what caused him to do as he did and still has many references to the multitude of accomplishments this major genius had. The author writes that Franklin was pushed by a desire to be useful, not just to himself or his family but to mankind in general and the people of America in particular. He would rather be useful than rich. He was very useful as an inventor and a scientist, having discovered the nature of electricity, invented the lightning rod, the Franklin smokeless stove, and a good number of scientific advancements including a partial mapping of the Gulf Stream. Rather than to stick with the scientific experiments he loved so much, his idea of important usefulness was in improving the status of the American people. He succeeded in doing that, probably more than any other individual, having founded the first Philadelphia militia, fire department, university, library, hospital and social club. He also wrote most of the first U.S. Articles of Confederation and was active in all the drafting of later Constitutions. As an ambassador to France, he had no peer. He constantly was able to get loans for America to help carry on the war for independence and do help get French military aid for the United States. The French people idolized Franklin, as did the Americans, and most of the
English people except the people who made the laws. Franklin would always present his ideas and hope that they would be accepted but if they were not, he would fight just as hard for what the people wanted. He had his ideas but wished for the American people to have things as they preferred. Always believing in a unified British Empire with England treating the "colonies" as equals, he was not a revolutionary and did everything he could as an envoy to England to cause the British government to see that it was to their advantage to be fair to America. He was finally convinced that the British government would never treat the "colonies" fairly and then he worked harder than anyone for an independent America and also for a united America.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating
Review: This is both a fascinating book, and it is about one of the
most fascinating subjects, Benjamin Franklin.
The book is a little on the short side, but the author explains
he kept it a bit limited in scope on purpose. He intends for
it to be readable,and he wants to concentrate on Franklin's public service; plus, he tends to focus on his overseas assignments on behalf of the 13 Colonies, as well as his later
service on behalf of the new United States.
No hero of our Revolution is more complex and diverse than
Franklin, and his public service far exceeds that of any other
of the Founders. We tend to forget how old Franklin was at the
time of some of his greatest service. After nearly 10 years in
England, trying to pursuade the English authorities in Parliament of the wisdom of keeping their American colonies within the British Empire by giving them equal status in that
Empire, and finally failing, he returned home to Philadelphia.
And the next day, he was elected to the Second Continental Congress.
As he entered the State House in Philadelphia to begin his term
in that Congress, it is noted that he served in that same building years before in the colonial assembly. And when he
served in the colonial government, some of the greatest of Founders weren't born yet; at that time, for example, Patrick
Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock and John Adams had not even been born. Franklin served all those years, and as the
Revolution was progressing, and he was in his 70s, the new government sent him to France to procure loans and to negotiate
treaties with France to help in their fight for Independence.
That he succeeded is evident, and he spent several years in France serving his new country.
The book reveals, in very interesting detail, that Franklin was
so revered and so respected in England, that while he was living
there, fighting for better understanding by Parliament, he was
blamed for everything that was happening in the Colonies. When
an assembly in Bostom forwarded new demands to King George III,
which inflamed Parliament, the Solicitor General called Franklin
the "great director" of those events and demands. The author
very nicely points out that the probably author of those demands
from Bostom, Samuel Adams, needed no direction from Franklin on
how to inflame independence passions.
When the Boston Tea Party took place in Boston harbor, in protest against Parliament's tax on imported tea, the Secretary for Colonial Affairs told Parliament the whole affair looked
like it came from "...the Franklin school of politics."
About that time, Franklin's English friends advised him he was
facing arrest, and many were afraid for his physical safety.
But he continued doing his job for the Colonies, and although
he met with much frustration in dealing with British authorities, he never wavered in his efforts to help the Colonies.
Franklin showed style, energy, and he exercised more diplomacy
in both England and France than we can imagine, and this author
does a nice job of pointing out his efforts and accomplishments.
Rating:
Summary: biography of a leader
Review: We hear about many people nowadays who are called "leaders of this or that people"; this is a biography of a man who really was a leader of a people and as such, it is good to read this short and critically-acclaimed biography to discover what a people's leader is. In these pages, Benjamin Franklin emerges as a man who "did as much as any to shape the world he and" his contemporaries lived. Here we see a person who throughout his life sought to determine what was in the public interest and who then tried to persuade the people to act for their own good. But he never tried to place what he thought good "above what they did". Furthermore, he never tried to gain even adequate compensation for his long and hard years as a public servant because he believed that private property was not a natural but a society-given right and that society should therefore see to it that no-one had too much wealth. This, of course, is not a view often associated with the author of the Poor Man's Almanac-even though he held this opinion since at least 1750 when he wrote that "what we have above what we can use, is not properly ours, tho' we possess it." Yet it is a view that we in a time littered with corrupt politicians who steal several million here and a billion there; who impose their idea of what is good on a people who as often as not are forced to obey or be killed; in a time when these thugs are yet called "leaders", might do well to recall. For here in a little over 300 pages we have a portrait of a true leader. A man who spoke little, listened a lot, and who led Americans to independence (although he would have personally preferred a British Empire of Equals). It would be good for us to remember this man for we live in a time when the men we call leaders are often anything but. Yet, perhaps when we recognize what makes a true leader we will once again have them.
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