Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.81 (593 Votes) |
| Asin | : | B0000AU8R8 |
| Format Type | : | |
| Number of Pages | : | 540 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2016-03-21 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
"An excellent biography" according to S. Davidson. Benjamin Franklin was a complicated personality whose political views changed over time. Franklin used Greek Philosophy as stepping stones from which he derived his first views on politics, virtues, and moral pragmatism but he shaped and modified these views as he aged. It is probably imposs. Mac McCormick III said Franklin would have appreciated the Pope’s thoughts on our poor stewardship of the natural world and given his ability. I didn’t plan it this way, but choosing to read Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson when I did was providential. While reading it, Pope Francis visited the United States and Speaker of the House Boehner announced his resignation. I think my timing was providential be. "A Complicated Man for an Extraordinary Time" according to J.B. Hughes. Recently, I have been spending time exploring the lives of America's founding fathers. Benjamin Franklin was someone that I thought I knew. In grade school we learn about the pithy Philladelphia boy who rose from poverty to wealth, flew a kite in a rain storm, and became an immortal figure i
. He is the author of Kissinger: A Biography and the co-author of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter. Walter Isaacson, the President of the Aspen Institute, has been the chairman of CNN and the managing editor of Time magazine
The most intriguing thing he invented, and continued to reinvent, according to Isaacson, was himself. Three-time Tony winner Gaines has an obvious interest and affinity for the material. All things considered, Gaines is a good match for the material. His delivery of Isaacson's factual yet fascinating biography is informative and friendly with an instructional yet casual tone, like that of a gregarious narrator of an educational film. . From Publishers Weekly Most people's mental image of Ben Franklin is that of an aged man with wire-rim glasses and a comb-over, flying a kite in a thunder storm, or of the spirited face that stares back from a one-hundred-dollar bill. Isaacson's (Kissinger) biography does much to remind us of Franklin's amazing depth and breadth. At once a scientist, craftsman, writer, publisher, comic, sage, ladies' man, statesman, d
In the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity. 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. 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. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.. 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. America's first great publicist, he was consciously trying to create a new American archetype. In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing