Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Walter Isaacson tells the life of Benjamin Franklin from his runaway apprenticeship in Boston through his decades as a printer and writer in Philadelphia, his pioneering work in electricity, and his long diplomatic service in London and Paris. The book follows Franklin's role in framing the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution and treats him as the most cosmopolitan of the founders. Isaacson draws on Franklin's autobiography, letters, and almanacs to bring out a man who valued practical virtue, civic improvement, and self-invention. He does not flatten the contradictions, including Franklin's slow turn against slavery and his strained family life. The result is a single-volume portrait that locates Franklin at the center of the American experiment.
Also by Walter Isaacson
What you might want to know about Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A full-length biography of Benjamin Franklin as printer, scientist, diplomat, and a defining figure of the early American republic.
Musk posted in 2011 that he was reading Isaacson's Franklin biography and highly recommended it, more than a decade before Isaacson would write Musk's own biography.
No. Isaacson writes for general readers and explains the political and scientific context as he goes.
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life was written by Walter Isaacson, published in 2003 by Simon & Schuster.
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life is 608 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life takes most readers 9 to 13 hours to finish.
Benjamin Franklin: An American Life is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
