BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Another great add - thank you Jerome.

[Jerome, Assisting Moderator - Upcoming Books and Releases]

Another:
Release date: February 8, 2022

Poor Richard's Women: Ben Franklin in Love

by Nancy Rubin Stuart

Synopsis:

We can’t seem to get enough of Ben Franklin—a man so confident in his own immortality that he tempted lightning to strike the same place twice. We know all about the key and the kite, the post offices, the libraries, the bifocals, the fire departments, and the almanacs. But what of the woman who raised his children, ran his businesses, built his house, and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England? Or, of the widow who Ben lived with in London for many years? Or, of the many other women who contributed to Ben’s life?

Little interest has been paid to these women—most notably Deborah Read Franklin, Ben’s common-law wife and partner for forty-four years. Historians have described her as a “servile rather than…active contributor” to Franklin’s success, “a woman unlikely to accompany his restless mind,” or simply “neither educated nor interesting.” She has been relegated to the role of shrew, nag, and footnoted antagonist to a “great man’s” life. But, as Nancy Rubin Stuart’s account proves, Deborah’s life and the lives of other romantic acquaintances throughout Ben’s life were as complex and compelling as any.

Using letters between Deborah and Ben and between Ben and his paramours, Stuart tells the tale of unassuming yet feisty, colonial woman who supported and cared for Ben throughout his life. What emerges is a colorful, poignant portrait of woman erased in history who, in the midst of their own struggles, ultimately achieve an independence rarely enjoyed by women of their time.

[Andrea]

My Goodness, Jerome, that sounds like a very interesting book. My TBR List thanks you.
Regards,
Andrea

[Jerome, Assisting Moderator - Upcoming Books and Releases]

Another:
Release date: November 12, 2024

Ingenious: A Biography of Benjamin Franklin, Scientist

by Richard Munson

Synopsis:

Benjamin Franklin was one of the preeminent scientists of his time. Driven by curiosity, he conducted cutting-edge research on electricity, heat, ocean currents, weather patterns, chemical bonds, and plants. But today, Franklin is remembered more for his political prowess and diplomatic achievements than his scientific creativity.

In Ingenious, Richard Munson recovers this vital part of Franklin’s story, reveals his modern relevance, and offers a compelling portrait of a shrewd experimenter, clever innovator, and visionary physicist whose fame opened doors to negotiate French support and funding for American independence. Munson’s riveting narrative explores how science underpins Franklin’s entire story—from tradesman to inventor to nation-founder.

[Jerome, Assisting Moderator - Upcoming Books and Releases]

Another:
Release date: March 11, 2025

The Franklin Stove: An Unintended American Revolution

by Joyce E. Chaplin (no photo)

Synopsis:

The biggest revolution in Benjamin Franklin’s lifetime was made to fit in a fireplace. Assembled from iron plates like a piece of flatpack furniture, the Franklin stove became one of the era's most iconic consumer products, spreading from Pennsylvania to England, Italy, and beyond. It was more than just a material object, however—it was also a hypothesis. Franklin was proposing that, armed with science, he could invent his way out of a climate a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age, when unusually bitter winters sometimes brought life to a standstill. He believed that his stove could provide snug indoor comfort despite another, related a shortage of wood caused by widespread deforestation. And he conceived of his invention as equal parts appliance and scientific instrument—a device that, by modifying how heat and air moved through indoor spaces, might reveal the workings of the atmosphere outside and explain why it seemed to be changing. With his stove, Franklin became America’s first climate scientist.

Joyce E. Chaplin’s The Franklin Stove is the story of this singular invention, and a revelatory new look at the Founding Father we thought we knew. We follow Franklin as he promotes his stove in Britain and France, while corresponding with scientists trying to understand the nature of gases and to clean up sooty urban air. During his travels back and forth across the Atlantic, we witness him taking measurements of the gulf stream and observing the cooling effect of volcanic ash from Iceland. And back in Philadelphia, we watch him hawk his invention while sparring with proponents of the popular theory that clearcutting forests would lead to warmer winters by reducing the amount of shade cover on earth. As the story of the Franklin stove shows, it’s not so easy to engineer our way out of a climate crisis; with this book, Chaplin reveals how that challenge is as old as the United States itself.

[Jerome, Assisting Moderator - Upcoming Books and Releases]

Another:
Release date: April 30, 2025

Undaunted Mind: The Intellectual Life of Benjamin Franklin

by Kevin J. Hayes (no photo)

Synopsis:

Arguably the most intellectual, creative, cosmopolitan, and curious of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin is the only top-tier Founder not to have served as president. Despite not becoming the Chief Executive, Franklin played an active role in American politics and served the aspiring and young United States in the key European capitals. His prodigious reading and appetite for learning are epic. As he did in works about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, Kevin J. Hayes interprets the life and mind of Franklin through what he read.

Undaunted Mind tells the story of the development of Franklin's intellect, starting with the earliest books he read as a child before examining his formal schooling and his independent study after his father pulled him from school. As an apprentice in his brother's printing house, Franklin's intellectual life developed through his contact with the Couranteers, the group of his brother's friends who contributed to his newspaper, and through his attention to his brother's excellent office library. After Franklin ran away to Philadelphia, he developed a new group of friends, all of whom loved reading. In many ways, the story of Franklin's intellectual odyssey is the story of the friends he made along the way. His time in London in his late teens introduced him to several important intellectuals who encouraged him to develop his mind.

After returning to Philadelphia from London, he and some friends formed the Junto, a club for mutual improvement that made reading and writing important activities. With other members of the Junto, he formed the Library Company of Philadelphia, the first subscription library in colonial America. His role as a printer put him in contact with the best eighteenth-century American writing and kept a steady flow of imported books coming from Britain. He became a scientist, assembling a great scientific library, which helped his electrical research. An educational reformer, Franklin founded the Philadelphia Academy, which would become the University of Pennsylvania. As agent for the Pennsylvania Assembly, Franklin lived in London for many years, where he befriended some of Britain's greatest minds. Different concentrations of books in his library reveal Franklin's interests in travel and exploration, warfare, and slavery. His time in Paris toward the end of his life gave Franklin another great intellectual experience, but he ultimately returned home to live the last five years of his life in Philadelphia, where he imparted his knowledge and experience to a new generation of Americans.

In this gripping work, Benjamin Franklin is given a biography as rich and complex as his own intellectual life by master literary historian Kevin J. Hayes.

[Andrea]

Oooooooo, Jerome, you hit it out of the park! There it goes … see ya! What a grand slam of a review! Thank you!
Regards,
Andrea

[Jerome, Assisting Moderator - Upcoming Books and Releases]

Another:
Release date: September 30, 2025

He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin's Forgotten Failure to Make Canada American

by Madelaine Drohan (no photo)

Synopsis:

When he was not busy conducting scientific experiments or representing American interests at home and abroad, Benjamin Franklin hatched one plan after another to join Canada to the American colonies and then later to the United States. These were not solely intellectual efforts. He went to Montreal in 1776 to try to turn around the faltering occupation by American forces. As lead American negotiator at the 1782 peace negotiations with Britain in Paris, he held the fate of Canada in his hands. Ill health and other American priorities then forced him to abandon his decades-long campaign to possess Canada.

Franklin’s elevation to the status of an American icon has pushed this signal failure into the far reaches of collective memory in both Canada and the United States. Yet it shaped the future of North America and relations between the two neighbours over the next two and a half centuries.

[Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights]

Thank you for the great adds, Jerome.

[Jerome, Assisting Moderator - Upcoming Books and Releases]

Another:
Release date: May 27, 2025

The Greatest American: Benjamin Franklin, History's Most Versatile Genius

by Mark Skousen

Synopsis:

Was Benjamin Franklin an indispensable public servant or a cunning chameleon? A hard-headed entrepreneur or an opportunistic privateer? A devoted family man or a notorious womanizer? A scientist and inventor or a hoaxer and self promoter? A believer or a heretic? The first civilized American or the most dangerous man in America?

Read this book, and you decide!

In The Greatest American, Dr. Mark Skousen--"America's Economist" and a direct descendant of the old man--reveals many new features and little-known facts about Ben Franklin, such as:
- The surprising benefits of inflation to pay for the American Revolution.
- How the War of Independence transformed him from a religious heretic to a believing theist.
- Why he hated party politics.
- How he changed his mind about slavery and became a devote abolitionist.
- The truth about his love affairs with women. Did he really abandon his wife Deborah, or did she abandon him?
- Why he never applied for any patents for his famous inventions.
- Why George Washington loved Franklin and John Adams despised him.
- Why he turned against his beloved son, William, and never forgave him.
- His preference for private welfare and charities rather than state-run social programs and welfare.

Benjamin Franklin was the oldest of the founding fathers -- he was indeed a whole generation ahead of George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson -- and yet he was the most forward-looking of the group and the most modern of the founders. The Greatest American shows just how much of an impact Benjamin Franklin had on American politics and daily life.