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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, Audio book by Walter Isaacson
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Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

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Boyd Gaines

7 Hours 0 Minutes

Simon & Schuster Audio

July 2003

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Audio Book Summary

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.

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Reviews

  • Joseph C

    Awesome telling of this historical legend! Highly recommended.

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  • William Beatty

    enjoyed this telling of an iconic legand. surprising tidbits and oddities that i was unaware of. worth the listen.

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  • ksiliven

    I really enjoyed this book! It brought the history alive and made me want to listen.

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  • Hilary

    ... of people I would love to have diner with. He invented the middle class and had faith in ordinary people in a way no modern American politician does -- especially the king of hope himself. The bureaucrats and serial legislators in DC and all state capitals would be well-advised to read this biography and aspire to be like Franklin.

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  • Deb

    I wish I hadn't read this book because my opinion of Benjamin Franklin would have remained high. Learning about the real man has enlightened me that in truth he really wasn't a "nice guy".

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  • Anonymous

    Parts of this were really good but it failed to hold my interest after awhile

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  • Anonymous

    Ben Franklin is such an amazing man that no matter who writes about his life, it is bound to be an interesting story. So I did enjoy this book. It is easy to listen to despite the fact it contains a lot of historical information. I didn't really know that much about Franklin and found him an incredibly fascinating individual.

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  • Anonymous

    Being a huge history buff I wanted to love it....really. I just found it a bit too scholarly and the narrator was just okay.

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  • Anonymous

    I thought that this was very interesting, it kept me entertained. Ben Franklin really deserves to be on the hundred.

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  • doc

    excellent, informative and a must if you enjoy history

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