And he helped invent America's unique style of homespun humor, democratic values, and philosophical pragmatism.īut the most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.
He was the only man who shaped all the founding documents of America: the Albany Plan of Union, the Declaration of Independence, the treaty of alliance with France, the peace treaty with England, and the Constitution. He combined two types of lenses to create bifocals and two concepts of representation to foster the nation's federal compromise. He organized neighborhood constabularies and international alliances, local lending libraries and national legislatures. He sought practical ways to make stoves less smoky and commonwealths less corrupt. He proved by flying a kite that lightning was electricity, and he invented a rod to tame it. He was, during his 84-year life, America's best scientist, inventor, diplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical-though not most profound-political thinkers. By bringing Franklin to life, Isaacson shows how he helped to define both his own time and ours. In bestselling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin seems to turn to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. An ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings, he seems made of flesh rather than of marble. Benjamin Franklin is the Founding Father who winks at us.
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