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67 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Won't the Real Ben Franklin Please Stand Up?, August 12, 2004
As one who has always been passionate about early American history, I must confess that untill reading Dr. Wood's fine character study, I have not read any books devoted to Benjamin Franklin. Like many others, then, I came to this book imbued by the vision of Franklin that sees him first and foremost as the self-made business person that authored "Poor Richard's Almanac," and the "Autobiography." My vision of Franklin was of the champion of pulling onesself up by one's bootstraps, temperance, and frugality.
Dr. Wood's intention with this book is not so much to dispel this vision - Franklin was indeed those things - as to augment it by filling in those lesser known bits of Franklin's life. While he was the self-made business man and champion of industry, he was also a man who, from there, forayed into the life of a gentleman of leisure and loved every minute of it. While he was a passionate American revolutionary, he was, before all that, a man who passionately believed in the British Empire and worked tirelessly to reconcile American and British inerests. While he was a man who was eventually loved by posterity as a true and exemplary American, he was, during his lifetime, just as often mistrusted and even scorned by fellow Americans.
Dr. Wood, then, has written not so much a biography as a character study that works to explain (a) how Benjamin Franklin morphed into all of these multifarious roles, (b) how, remarkably, he was successful at all of them (well, all but one; you'll see!), and (c) how it wasn't untill after his death that Franklin's early life as a business-person was focused on almost to exclusion of all else, in essence, transforming his image to that of the quintessential American.
Dr. Wood, in all of this, has created a thrilling and very educational book that 'gets into Franklin's head' as well as I imagine any book could. Throught it all, Dr. Wood remains somewhat neutral and defferential as to the character of Franklin, neither denouncing or overly praising him. Rather, he gives us the facts, tells the story, uses enough enthusiasm and warmth to convey the excitement that was Franklin's life, but never resorts to too much by way of polemic. Those expecting either a laudatory cheerleading or a denunciatory expose of Franklin will not find what they are looking for here. Those who simply want a good, robust and erudite, character studty will.
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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Gordon Wood recovers the historic Benjamin Franklin, May 27, 2004
"The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin" is not a traditional biography of the Founding Father's remarkable life but a more selective study of specific aspects of his life as they relate to his enduring popular image. Wood's purpose is to recover the historic Franklin who has been replaced my a series of images and representations over the past two hundred years as he came to be known as "the first American." The grand irony is that before he personified being "American" to all of Western civilization, Franklin was the most British of the colonists; Wood argues that Franklin's emotional commitment to the vision of a pan-British world was rivaled only by that of William Pitt the Elder. That is important for understanding how a man who would sign his name to the Declaration of Independence was, two decades earlier, beseeching the King of England to make Pennsylvania a Crown colony. It was not just because of antipathy for the Penn family, but because Franklin believed whole-heartedly in the beneficence of the British monarchy. However, when it became clear that he was not going to be considered truly British--and if Dr. Franklin could not be accorded that right then clearly no Colonial ever would--that Franklin embraced the idea of being something else. In that regard he was similar to George Washington, whose chief ambition was to be a serving British officer and who was treated with even greater disdain by those he aspired to be like. Wood makes his case by tracing Franklin's evolution through five key stages. We begin with his early ambition of "Becoming a Gentleman," which shows that Franklin raised above his humble beginnings and trade as a printer not only through his own enterprise but through the patronage of wealthy and influential men, challenging the purity of his rags to riches story. "Becoming a British Imperialist" covers how Franklin the gentleman had time to become the scientist who would be known throughout the Empire and the continent as Dr. Franklin. These first two chapters are the most interesting because they representing the early Franklin who has been obscured by the Franklin the Founding Father. That is the Franklin developed in the last three chapters. "Becoming a Patriot" begins with the Stamp Act and Franklin's reaction to it, tracing the series of events that forced him to the cause of revolution after a last attempt to save the Empire in which he believed. By the time Franklin returns to the United States and begins the stage of "Becoming a Diplomat," he has become too American in England and too English in America, so it is not surprising that it is the French for whom he becomes "the symbolic American." "Becoming an American," Woods final chapter, covers Franklin's return to America, and his death. What followed was not only his apotheosis, as the greatest American president never to be president to use one common phrase, but also the deification of Franklin as the self-made businessman. In the end Wood wants to comment on the Myth of American Nationhood, and my one disappointment in the book is that he does not spend more time on the changes in Franklin's popular image following his death; I was expecting there to be an entire chapter devoted to that as well, although Wood does point out the bits and pieces of key elements as he goes along. Gordon Wood is a Professor of History at Brown University and one of the foremost national scholars on the American Revolution. In 1991 his book, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered one of the definitive works on the social, political, and economic consequences of the Revolutionary War. The book essentially argues how the American Revolution transformed a society that was essentially feudal (think about it) into a democratic society that actually confounded and disappointed the Founding Fathers. Of course what most Americans know about Gordon Wood is that he has written about the pre-Revolutionary utopia and the capital forming effects of military mobilization and that Vickers believes that Wood drastically underestimates the impact of social distinctions predicated upon wealth, especially inherited wealth ("Work in Essex County", page 98, right?). "The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin" is the sort of history case study of which I am most interested at this point. I already know the basic biography of Franklin and in recent years the only new bit that I have really picked up was that both he and Jefferson spoke atrocious French and that Franklin was apparently unaware of it (or used it to his advantage in his "American" persona while in Paris). Wood's starting point is actually today, the image of Franklin in the popular mind, and then going back and showing not only how this image came to be but also how it diverges from the historical record. This image of Franklin is not "true," but it is "real," and Wood's volume does not expose its falsity as much as it explains why in looking backwards different generations of Americans have seen Franklin through the eyes of their own times. Most of the illustrations in the volume consist of portraits of Franklin, done after he became a gentleman, and which provide visual evidence of his transformations; certainly there are few figures in American history whose lives are so aptly captured in such a fashion. In reminding us that Franklin was not simply a British colonist but also a most loyal subject to the crown who say in the American colonies the potential for expanding the greatness and glory of the British empire, Wood emphasizes the radical transformation that turned Franklin into a zealous patriot. It is hard for us to think of Franklin as anything other than an American, but there is great value in remembering the times in which they both lived and him within that context as well as appreciating his legacy today.
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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
BF's legacy saved by his Autobiography and Poor Richard, November 28, 2004
This book reads like a novel and is difficult to put down. The author tries to get into BF's mind - not a simple task. While Wood doesn't leave out BF's failures, it is easy to be overwhelmed with how talented this man was. Although his whole life is reviewed, I would like to cover in this review something only hinted at in the last chapter.
When BF was in his young to middle-aged working life, he created, among other things, Poor Richard's Almanac. This was first published in 1733 - full of common sense, admonitions to industry and frugality, and homespun proverbs. His last edition was in 1758, reprinted separately as "The Way To Wealth," and attributed to a "Father Abraham."
Later, when BF was in a rare depression following a political failure in England, a friend convinced him he owed it to the public to write an autobiography. He began the first installment as advice to his son, William, and wrote additional entries over a number of years.
BF loved Europe, and they loved him. His work in electricity in his early 40's earned him an international reputation, complete with multiple honorary degrees. Perhaps because he spent so much time abroad, perhaps because his political enemies set the tone, he was not as appreciated in his home country. Interestingly, he made it back for the writing of the both the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution 11 years later.
After BF died, he was virtually ignored in America, while France proclaimed 3 days of mourning and made him a national hero. This contrast is more than striking. There were many signers to the Declaration of Independence, yet only a few of them stand out in America as household names. The rest of them have varied lesser legacies, with perhaps only short encyclopedia entries.
BF's legacy would possibly have shared that fate, had it not been for his writings, particularly his Autobiography and Poor Richard's Almanac. Vitally important to the popularity of BF's writings were the changes that were occuring in American society, lessening the mindless esteem of the seemingly non-working upper class, and celebrating the working man. Perhaps his books helped to expedite these changes.
In the early 1800's these two books became standard issue for those working men who aspired to get ahead in America. "The Way To Wealth" alone had over a hundred editions in over a dozen languages. His "list of virtues" comprised 13 traits, each one to be concentrated on for a week at a time. At the end of thirteen weeks, they would all have been practiced once, so one starts over. At the end of a year, each virtue would have been rehearsed for four weeks. BF admitted in writing the difficulties he personally experienced while trying to be virtuous, but maintained there was virtue in attempting perfection. One of his famous statement concerns his difficulty conquering vanity. He wrote that in trying to keep his vanity under control during "humility" week, he found himself succumbing to proudness for having achieved so much humbleness (or something like that).
In 1836, a copy of BF's Autobiography was amongst Davy Crockett's few possessions found at the Alamo. This excellent book about one of my heroes, though relatively short, captures BF's exemplary abilities and a few human weaknesses. I give it my highest recommendation.
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