Dominic Green
The Prometheus of Modern Times
Benjamin Franklin in London: The British Life of America’s Founding Father
By George Goodwin
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 365pp £25 order from our bookshop
There are three Benjamin Franklins: the American, the British and the French. The first and the last are famous, the second forgotten. The American Franklin is a curious hybrid, conceived in the image of the American Revolution: the Founding Father as common man. The folksy tinkerer builds the American Enlightenment in his shed; the conductor of political lightning defies a mighty empire out of common sense.
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