u003cbu003eIn this authoritative and engrossing full-scale biography, Walter Isaacson, bestselling author of u003ciu003eEinstein u003c/iu003eand u003ciu003eSteve Jobsu003c/iu003e, shows how the most fascinating of America's founders helped define our national character.u003c/bu003eu003cbru003eu003cbru003eBenjamin 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 u003ciu003ePoor Richard’s Almanacu003c/iu003e 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.u003cbru003eu003cbru003eIn 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.
