Biographies of American's Founding Father Benjamin Franklin

Biographies of American's Founding Father Benjamin Franklin

Books in list (19)


Title: The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

National Bestseller 

He 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 Drawing on previously unpublished letters and a host of other sources, acclaimed historian H. W. Brands has written a thoroughly engaging biography of the eighteenth-century genius.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.

Author(s): H. W. Brands
ISBN 13: 9780385495400
Pages: 784

Title: Benjamin Franklin's the Art of Virtue: His Formula for Successful Living

Author(s): Benjamin Franklin
ISBN 13: 9780938399100
Pages: 312

Title: The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

From the most respected chronicler of the early days of the Republic—and winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes—comes a landmark work that rescues Benjamin Franklin from a mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the man he really was and makes sense of aspects of his life and career that would have otherwise remained mysterious. In place of the genial polymath, self-improver, and quintessential American, Gordon S. Wood reveals a figure much more ambiguous and complex—and much more interesting. Charting the passage of Franklin’s life and reputation from relative popular indifference (his death, while the occasion for mass mourning in France, was widely ignored in America) to posthumous glory, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin sheds invaluable light on the emergence of our country’s idea of itself.

Author(s): Gordon S. Wood
ISBN 13: 9780143035282
Pages: 320

Title: Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

In this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of Einstein and Steve Jobs, shows how the most fascinating of America's founders helped define our national character. Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us, the one who seems made of flesh rather than marble. In a sweeping narrative that follows Franklin’s life from Boston to Philadelphia to London and Paris and back, Walter Isaacson chronicles the adventures of the runaway apprentice who became, over the course of his eighty-four-year life, America’s best writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, and business strategist, as well as one of its most practical and ingenious political leaders. He explores the wit behind Poor Richard’s Almanac and the wisdom behind the Declaration of Independence, the new nation’s alliance with France, the treaty that ended the Revolution, and the compromises that created a near-perfect Constitution. In this colorful and intimate narrative, Isaacson provides the full sweep of Franklin’s amazing life, showing how he helped to forge the American national identity and why he has a particular resonance in the twenty-first century.
Author(s): Walter Isaacson
ISBN 13: 9780743258074
Pages: 608
This book is in (5) other book lists, learn more.

Title: Benjamin Franklin

From Benjamin Franklin's beginnings as a journalist at age sixteen to his retirement from public affairs at eighty-two, there was no break in his activity and accomplishments. As a writer, inventor, and statesman, he was--and still is--unsurpassed by anyone in the range of his natural gifts and the important uses to which he put them.

In this monumental biography, which won the Pulitzer Prize when first published in 1939, Carl Van Doren incorporates materials from Franklin's letters, manuscripts, journals, and published works to give the most accurate and comprehensive portrait ever written of this great American.

Author(s): Carl Van Doren
ISBN 13: 9780140152609
Pages: 864

Title: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Author(s): Benjamin Franklin
ISBN 13: 9780486290737

Title: Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790. However, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his Memoirs.
Author(s): Benjamin Franklin
ISBN 13: 9781533651082
Pages: 152

Title: The Making of a Patriot

Author(s): Sheila Skemp
ISBN 13: 9780195386561

Title: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (with an Introduction by Henry Ketcham)

In “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” the life story of one of the most important figures in American history is recounted. Franklin was more than just a founding father of the country; he was also a prolific writer, tradesman, scientist, diplomat, and philosopher. His autobiography tells the story of his life from childhood through the year 1757 where it ends uncompleted. The work begins by detailing many of the personal aspects of his childhood including his contentious relationship with his brother James, from whom he would learn the printing business as an apprentice. A falling out with his brother would lead to him setting out on his own as a printer, where he ultimately would find great financial success in publishing the “Philadelphia Gazette” and “Poor Richard’s Almanac.” Largely absent from the work is much discussion regarding his role in the American Revolution and the founding of the United States. Readers will find instead more of a focus on his own personal life and exposition of his moral philosophy. There may be no greater figure in American history than Benjamin Franklin and here the reader will delight in an intimate portrait of the man in his own words. This edition is printed on premium acid-free paper and includes an introduction by Henry Ketcham.
Author(s): Benjamin Franklin
ISBN 13: 9781420953862
Pages: 164

Title: Real Benjamin Franklin: The True Story of America's Greatest Diplomat, Vol. 2

The Real Benjamin Franklin: The True Story of America's Greatest Diplomat

There are many Benjamin Franklins. Or at least he has taken on many different forms in the history books and conversations of the last two centuries. Some historians have shown us an aged statesman whose wise and steadying influence kept the Constitutional Convention together in 1787, while others have pictured a chuckling prankster who couldn't resist a funny story. More recently, a certain brand of biographers and journalists have conjured up sensational tales of a lecherous old diplomat in his seventies who enjoyed illicit affairs with adoring young French women. And a few years ago Franklin even reappeared as a British spy! Some of these myths are now being repeated and embellished in school textbooks and educational television programs.

Which of all these Benjamin Franklins, if any, is real? This book is an attempt to answer that question. Or, more accurately, it is an attempt to let Franklin himself provide the answer. The Real Benjamin Franklin makes no effort to develop another fresh interpretation of the Sage of Philadelphia. Instead, it seats us across the table from the one person who really knew Benjamin Franklin- -that is, Franklin himself- -and gives him an opportunity to explain his life and ideas in his own words. Part I of this book details his exciting biography, and Part II includes his most important and insightful writings. In both sections, Franklin's words are carefully documented from original sources.

This volume is part of a series being published by the National Center for Constitutional Studies, a nonprofit educationalfoundation dedicated to restoring Constitutional principles in the tradition of America's Founding Fathers. The AMERICAN CLASSIC SERIES is designed to revive an intelligent appreciation of the Founders and the remarkable system of free government which they gave us. The nation these men built is now in the throes of a political, economic, social, and spiritual crisis that has driven many to an almost frantic search for modern solutions. The truth is that the solutions have been available for a long time- -in fact, for nearly two hundred years- -in the writings of our Founding Fathers!

Author(s): Andrew M. Allison
ISBN 13: 9780880800013
Pages: 504

Title: Autobiography and Other Writings

Author(s): Benjamin Franklin
ISBN 13: 9780199554904


Title: Benjamin Franklin

Author(s): Edmund S. Morgan
ISBN 13: 9780300101621

Title: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Author(s): Benjamin Franklin
ISBN 13: 9781492720942
Pages: 184

Title: Benjamin and William Franklin: Father and Son, Patriot and Loyalist

The American Revolution was a civil war as well as a war for independence. The experience of Benjamin Franklin and his son, William, royal governor of New Jersey, reveals America's internal struggle over the question of loyalty to England. A collection of letters accompanies Sheila Skemp's narrative of the two men, bonded by blood, divided by political cause.

Author(s): Sheila L. Skemp
ISBN 13: 9780312086176
Pages: 205

Title: Benjamin Franklin

The tenth and youngest son of a poor Boston soapmaker, Benjamin Franklin would rise to become, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "the greatest man and ornament of his age." In this short, engaging biography, historian Edwin S. Gaustad offers a marvelous portrait of this towering colonial figure, illuminating Franklin's character and personality.
Here is truly one of the most extraordinary lives imaginable, a man who, with only two years of formal education, became a printer, publisher, postmaster, philosopher, world-class scientist and inventor, statesman, musician, and abolitionist. Gaustad presents a chronological account of all these accomplishments, delightfully spiced with quotations from Franklin's own extensive writings. The book describes how the hardworking Franklin became at age 24 the most successful printer in Pennsylvania and how by 42, with the help of Poor Richard's Almanack, he had amassed enough wealth to retire from business. We then follow Franklin's next brilliant career, as an inventor and scientist, examining his pioneering work on electricity and his inventions of the Franklin Stove, the lightning rod, and bifocals, as well as his mapping of the Gulf Stream, a major contribution to navigation. Lastly, the book covers Franklin's role as America's leading statesman, ranging from his years in England before the Revolutionary War to his time in France thereafter, highlighting his many contributions to the cause of liberty. Along the way, Gaustad sheds light on Franklin's personal life, including his troubled relationship with his illegitimate son William, who remained a Loyalist during the Revolution, and Franklin's thoughts on such topics as religion and morality.
Written by a leading authority on colonial America, this compact biography captures in a remarkably small space one of the most protean lives in our nation's history.

Author(s): Edwin S. Gaustad
ISBN 13: 9780195368703
Pages: 160

Title: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

“Never confuse Motion with Action.” Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Franklin's Autobiography has received widespread praise, both for its historical value as a record of an important early American and for its literary style. It is often considered the first American book to be taken seriously by Europeans as literature. William Dean Howells in 1905 asserted that "Franklin's is one of the greatest autobiographies in literature, and towers over other autobiographies as Franklin towered over other men." However, Mark Twain's essay "The Late Benjamin Franklin" (1870) provides a less exalted reaction, albeit somewhat tongue-in-cheek (for example, claiming that his example had "brought affliction to millions of boys since, whose fathers had read Franklin's pernicious biography"). D. H. Lawrence wrote a notable invective against "Middle-sized, sturdy, snuff-coloured Doctor Franklin" in 1923, finding considerable fault with Franklin's attempt at crafting precepts of virtue and at perfecting himself. Nevertheless, responses to The Autobiography have generally been more positive than Twain's or Lawrence's, with most readers recognizing it as a classic of literature and relating to the narrative voice of the author. In this work, Franklin's persona comes alive and presents a man whose greatness does not keep him from being down-to-earth and approachable, who faces up to mistakes and blunders ("Errata") he has committed in life, and who presents personal success as something within the reach of anyone willing to work hard enough for it
Author(s): Benjamin Franklin
ISBN 13: 9781497459182
Pages: 148

 


Next book list: Books on the Life and Presidency of George W. Bush >>