Benjamin Franklin by Edmund S. Morgan
A selection by a book club I belong to. I wasn’t too thrilled with this one. The book is taken exclusively from writing by, to and from Franklin; all primary sources. While it covers a lot of ground, much more is missing. I didn’t feel I got any real impression of what he was like as a person. The correspondence used was pretty much all official in nature, and very little was personal. What little there was wasn’t from his wife, that’s for certain and she remains a non-entity.
The fan boi tone bugged me as well. Franklin is certainly a great man, there is no dispute about that, but whenever somethign did go wrong, it was always someone else’s fault. Maybe that’s true, maybe not, but it’s hard to believe anyone can be so perfect.
I’d give this one a skip.
