Not Your Usual Founding Father: Selected Readings from Benjamin FranklinThis engaging book reveals Benjamin Franklin’s human side—his tastes and habits, his enthusiasms, and his devotion to democracy and the people of the United States. Three hundred years after his birth, we may remember Franklin’s famous Autobiography, or his status as framer of the Declaration of Independence and the peace with Great Britain, or his experiments in electricity, or perhaps his sage advice on diligence and thrift. But historian Edmund S. Morgan invites us to meet the man himself, a sociable, good-natured, and extraordinary human being with boundless curiosity about the natural world and a vision of what America could be. Drawing on lifelong research in the vast Franklin archives, Morgan assembles both famous and lesser-known writings that offer insights into this founding father’s thinking. The book is organized around four major themes, each with an introduction. The first section includes journal excerpts and letters revealing Franklin’s personal tastes and habits. The second is devoted to Franklin’s inexhaustible intellectual energy and his scientific discoveries. The third and fourth chronicle his devotion to serving the people who became the United States both before and after the Revolution and to advancing his democratic vision of their future. Franklin’s humanity and genius have never seemed more real than in the pages of this appealing anthology. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 39
Page 3
... hand''—this in 1770, when he had been gone for six years. In the same letter: ''When will it be in your power to cume home? How I long to see you but I wold not say one word that wold give you one moments trubel.'' Franklin never ...
... hand''—this in 1770, when he had been gone for six years. In the same letter: ''When will it be in your power to cume home? How I long to see you but I wold not say one word that wold give you one moments trubel.'' Franklin never ...
Page 7
... hand appears the coast of France at a distance, and on the right is the town and castle of Dover, with the green hills and chalky cli√s of England, to which we must now bid farewell. Albion, farewell! Monday, July 25 All the morning ...
... hand appears the coast of France at a distance, and on the right is the town and castle of Dover, with the green hills and chalky cli√s of England, to which we must now bid farewell. Albion, farewell! Monday, July 25 All the morning ...
Page 9
... hand, between the two pillars of porphyry. Indeed all the marble about it is very fine and good; and they say it was designed by the French King for his palace at Versailles, but was cast away upon this island, and by Sir Robert himself ...
... hand, between the two pillars of porphyry. Indeed all the marble about it is very fine and good; and they say it was designed by the French King for his palace at Versailles, but was cast away upon this island, and by Sir Robert himself ...
Page 11
... hands before us, despairing to get o√; for if the tide had left us we had been never the nearer, we must have sat in the boat, as the mud was too deep for us to walk ashore through it, being up to our necks. At last we bethought ...
... hands before us, despairing to get o√; for if the tide had left us we had been never the nearer, we must have sat in the boat, as the mud was too deep for us to walk ashore through it, being up to our necks. At last we bethought ...
Page 21
... Hand. I have since thought that there might be some Truth in his Observation, and that possibly Nature finding they made no use of Bubbies, has left o√ giving them any. Yet since Rousseau, with admirable Eloquence pleaded for the ...
... Hand. I have since thought that there might be some Truth in his Observation, and that possibly Nature finding they made no use of Bubbies, has left o√ giving them any. Yet since Rousseau, with admirable Eloquence pleaded for the ...
Contents
1 | |
Part II Nature observed | 67 |
Part III A continental vision | 141 |
Part IV War peace and humanity | 219 |
Chronology | 289 |
Credits | 291 |
Index | 297 |
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Common terms and phrases
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