The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

From the most respected chronicler of the early days of the republican winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes-comess a landmark work that rescues Benjamin Franklin from a mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the man he really was and makes sense of aspects of his life and career that would have otherwise remained mysterious. In place of the genial polymath self-improver and quintessential American Gordon S. Wood reveals a figure much more ambiguous and complex-andd much more interesting. Charting the passage of franklin''s life and reputation from relative popular indifference (his death while the occasion for mass mourning in France was widely ignored in America) to posthumous glory sheds invaluable light on the emergence of our country''s idea of itself.