He also shows how Franklin helped to create the American character and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century. He chronicles Franklin's tumultuous relationship with his illegitimate son and grandson, his practical marriage, and his flirtations with the ladies of Paris. In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin's amazing life, from his days as a runaway printer to his triumphs as a statesman, scientist, and Founding Father. 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 the process, he carefully crafted his own persona, portrayed it in public, and polished it for posterity. A New York Times Bestseller A Book of the Month Club Main Selection A History Book Club Alternate SelectionIn this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson. America's first great publicist, he was consciously trying to create a new American archetype. 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. In best selling 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. Simon & Schuster, 30 (608pp) ISBN 978-1-4 Benjamin Franklin, Isaacsons longer biography easily holds its own.
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