Welcoming Ben & Me

Eric Weiner’s new book (Ben & Me) comes out this month, and Politics and Prose is hosting some opening ceremonies on June 12th. I enjoy Eric’s work, and find this book to be a wonderful introduction to Franklin and a thoughtful exploration of his life, locations and lessons by a very companionable writer. Reflections on …

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Franklin’s Printing Network

At long last, I have read Benjamin Franklin’s Printing Network: Disseminating Virtue in Early America by Ralph Frasca (University of Missouri Press, 2006). The author covers his topic well: the various people Franklin worked with in the course of repeated attempts to start subordinate businesses around North America. The importance of bookkeeping, especially keeping track …

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Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet

This book would be fine as a first book on Franklin, because the author starts from not knowing much about him, and touches meaningfully on every fundamental facet of Franklin that I can think of. He goes on to cover his topic very well. Most Franklin fans are not particularly interested in what happened to …

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The Young Benjamin Franklin

From my Goodreads review of Nick Bunker’s wonderful book: Without question, my Book of the Year, so far. One of the best books on Franklin, this takes many episodes one reads right past in his Autobiography (and standard biographies) and goes deeper.The definition of “young” is generous: Franklin is forty years old before this author …

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Somersett

I’m cross-posting my review in GoodReads here of Phillip Goodrich‘s 2019 book, Somersett – Or Why and How Benjamin Franklin Orchestrated The American Revolution. It’s a darn good story, with a lot of lively historical matters presented, but unreliable while asking us to believe all of it. The author spins an engaging tale of a …

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Hopkinson Family Archives

The Family Archives of the Hopkinson family came to auction in June 2020. One item is a book given by Dr. Franklin to Francis Hopkinson, with this commentary from the auction catalog: Thomas Hopkinson (1709 – 1751), father of Francis Hopkinson (1737 – 1791) , worked with Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790) on several of …

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