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.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
Benjamin Franklin and the Invention of America
CHAPTER TWO
Pilgrim's Progress: Boston, 1706-1723
CHAPTER THREE
Journeyman: Philadelphia and London, 1723-1726
CHAPTER FOUR
Printer: Philadelphia, 1726-1732
CHAPTER FIVE
Public Citizen: Philadelphia, 1731-1748
CHAPTER SIX
Scientist and Inventor: Philadelphia, 1744-1751
CHAPTER SEVEN
Politician: Philadelphia, 1749-1756
CHAPTER EIGHT
Troubled Waters: London, 1757-1762
CHAPTER NINE
Home Leave: Philadelphia, 1763-1764
CHAPTER TEN
Agent Provocateur: London, 1765-1770
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rebel: London, 1771-1775
CHAPTER TWELVE
Independence: Philadelphia, 1775-1776
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Courtier: Paris, 1776-1778
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bon Vivant: Paris, 1778-1785
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Peacemaker: Paris, 1778-1785
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sage: Philadelphia, 1785-1790
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Epilogue
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Conclusions
Cast of Characters
Chronology
Currency Conversions
Acknowledgments
Sources and Abbreviations
Notes
Index
