The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

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Written by Gordon S. Wood

From the cover:  “We all know Benjamin Franklin, or think we do: the genial polymath, prodigious self-improver, and quintessential American.  The problem with this beloved notion, asserts Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood, is that it’s simply not true. In his groundbreaking and enormously engaging study, Wood recuses Franklin from the mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the no less admirable but far more interesting man Franklin really was. A landmark work, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin gives us a magnificent, fresh vision of Franklin’s life and reputation, a vital new understanding of the American Revolution, and profound insight into the emergence of America’s idea of itself”.