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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, POLITICIAN

Name: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, POLITICIAN
Author: Francis Jennings
ISBN: 0-393-03983-8

THE MASK AND THE MAN

by Francis Jennings ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1996

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A revisionist look at Franklin, focusing on his long struggle against the power of the Penn family and his evolution into one of the nation's first revolutionaries. Jennings (Empire of Fortune, 1988, etc.) dismisses much of Franklin's Autobiography as a series of half-truths designed, like a campaign speech, to present himself in the best possible light for posterity. Instead, Jennings suggests that Franklin's struggle against Thomas Penn, which is not even mentioned in the Autobiography, was central to Franklin's political development and is crucial in understanding his later revolutionary career. Founded by William Penn, the Pennsylvania colony was ruled, when Franklin arrived from Boston in 1723, as a proprietary colony by the Penn family. After establishing himself as a successful printer and newspaper publisher, and while making signficant contributions to the study of electricity and creating America's first lending library and philosophical society, Franklin challenged the intractable Penns for political primacy in the colony: He supported the Quaker politicians in the Pennsylvania assembly, many of whom he privately despised, in their resistance to Thomas Penn's bad faith dealings with the local Indians and his arbitrary, inept rule of the colony, largely from London. Franklin also emerges as a champion of colonial defense against incursions by the French and Indian tribes. Franklin became a dedicated servant of the Crown and was at first very successful representing colonial interests in London. Ultimately, he became the focus of royal ire and was denounced on the floor of the Privy Council in an episode that led to his final break with Britain. As Pennsylvania's chief statesman, he was instrumental in calling the first meetings of patriots that led to the formation of the Continental Congress, and ultimately to the Revolution. A fine portrait of the political side of ``the first American.''

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-393-03983-8

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996

Categories:

BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CREATION OF AMERICA
by Francis Jennings

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUNDERS OF AMERICA
by Francis Jennings

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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INTO THE WILD

by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...

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The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).

Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.

A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor will it to readers of Krakauer's narrative. (4 maps) (First printing of 35,000; author tour)