Franklin on FranklinUniversity Press of Kentucky, 2000 - 315 Seiten Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died. Those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs, yet instead of including them in his memoir, Franklin spent the years continually revising his original text. Paul Zall has created a new autobiographical account of Franklin's entire life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, he strips away later layers of moralizing to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used words and hard work to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all three key documents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals. Franklin emerges as different from the common perception of him as a crafty "Man of Reason." His raw words reveal the bitter infighting among both British and American politicians and his personal struggle with his son's choice of the opposite side in the fight for the future of two countries. Without the veneer of second thoughts, his lifelong struggle to control his temper carries greater poignancy, as do his later years spent nursing his wounded pride. Susceptible to both fallibility and frustration, the honest Franklin depicted in his own words nevertheless remains an uncommon common man, perhaps even more so than previously thought. |
Im Buch
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... live here as frugally as possible not to be destitute of the Com- forts of Life , making no Dinners for anybody , and content- ing my self with a single Dish when I dine at home ; and yet such is the Dearness of Living here in every ...
... live , have much to do and no time for Altercation . If I have often receiv'd and borne your Magisterial Snubbings and Rebukes without Reply , ascribe it to the right Causes , my Concern for the Honour and Success of our Mission , which ...
... live with it - even joke about it . I am sensible that it is grown heavier ; but on the whole it does not give me more pain than when at Passy , and ex- cept in standing , walking , or making water , I am very little incommoded by it ...
Inhalt
Becoming a Journalist | 26 |
Settling at Philadelphia | 36 |
Plotting to Deceive Being Deceived | 49 |
Urheberrecht | |
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