https://blog.georgefabish.com/tags/isaacson/ Recent content in Isaacson on George's Blog Hugo en-US Mon, 22 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000 https://blog.georgefabish.com/reviews/benjamin-franklin-an-american-life/ Wed, 31 Dec 1969 19:33:23 -0500 https://blog.georgefabish.com/reviews/benjamin-franklin-an-american-life/ <p><em><strong>&ldquo;Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us&hellip;&rdquo;</strong></em></p> <p>When we think of Benjamin Franklin today, we picture a Santa Claus character with a touch of mania. We see him flying a kite in a thunderstorm, or perhaps we see him behind a desk penning some of Poor Richard&rsquo;s famous one-liners like &ldquo;a cat in gloves catches no mice&rdquo;. Franklin was indeed often conducting unique experiments, and his witty sayings were legendary, but Isaacson wants to show us the Franklin that has been forgotten. He was the only founding father to have signed and helped create four of the major documents of the American Revolution. His ability to strike a balance between idealism and realism along with his aversion to extremism made him the exact character required to stitch together thirteen disparate colonies into a single country.</p>