Benjamin Franklin
An American Life
The printer, scientist and diplomat who invented the American character, told as the life of the country's first self-made man
Isaacson’s first major biography presents Franklin as the most approachable of the founders and the most modern: printer, scientist, diplomat and relentless self-improver who invented both institutions and a national character. He traces how a runaway apprentice became the man who negotiated the alliance that won the Revolution, and argues that Franklin’s pragmatic tolerance is his most useful legacy.
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