Walter Isaacson.
WALTER ISAACSON: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BIOGRAPHY
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: AN AMERICAN LIFE (2003)
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Benjamin Franklin (born 1706) was a man of an extraodinarily large number of parts. He was a scientist, but also an inventor, a diplomat, a printer, a publisher and a political philosopher. He was one of the drafters and signers of the American Declaration of Independence, and he was the new republic’s first Postmaster General. He was also from 1776 to 1785 the Ambassador to Frrance.
Benjamin Franklin’s father Josiah was a maker of soap and candles who had been born in England, the son of a blacksmith and farmer. Josiah Franklin emigrated to America in 1683 with his wife Anne and their three children. They had four more children after they arrived. Following Anne’s death, Franklin married Abiah Folder in 1689. They had ten more children, making a total of seventeen, with Benjamin being the fifteenth. Benjamin’s father could only afford to send him to school for two years. He started working for his father at the age of ten, and at twelve he became an apprentice to his brother James. James was a printer who in 1721 started a newspaper, the New England Courant. When he was seventeen, Benjamin moved to Philadelphia to start a new life. In 1732, at the age of 26, he started his own printing and publishing business. This prospered, and Franklin became increasingly involve in political and civic life.
The New York Times described Isaacson’s biography of Franklin as: ‘A thoroughly researched, crisply written, convincingly argued chronicle’. The New Yorker described it as: Energetic, entertaining, and worldly’.
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Walter Isaacson’s career was as a journalist, editor, television executive, and author - with a specialism in biographies. His other biographees have included Henry Kissinger, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo da Vinci, and Elon Musk. Isaacson attended Harvard, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. He was during his career the chief executive officer of the CNN television network, and the editor of Time magazine. He was also the chief executive officerof the policy studies think tank the Aspen Institute.
