Edmund S, Morgan
352 pages
Read in 35 days
This is the kind of book that should have not taken as long as it did to read. Yes, I was busier with work stuff and couldn't find the down-time to read, but it is just terrible that it would take me this long. The book is an easy read. It's not bogged down, as a lot of historical biographies are, with tedious hypothesis about the motives for different characters. At the end of the book, though, I wondered if I really understood the man and why this book is one that Newsweek thinks I need to read now.
There are a couple things that I previously did not know about Benjamin Franklin that had I been paying more attention during school, I may have remembered. First, I did not know that Franklin was in favor of British rule in the new world. If the British weren't so darn greedy, perhaps that vision would come true. It seems that Franklin was trying to patch up the "mistakes" that the British were making and fought hard to hold the empire together. You can picture Franklin shaking his head at the vast corruption and greediness within Parliament when he confides to a friend, "…when I consider the extream (sic) Corruption prevalent among all Orders of Men in this old rotten State, and the glorious publick Virtue so predominant in our rising Country, I cannot but apprehend more Mischief than Benefit from a closer Union…To unite us intimately, will only be corrupt and poison us also." This is a man who does not have too much faith in the old system. The second thing that I learned is that John Adams is a paranoid loon. Franklin says of him, "he means well for his Country, (he's) always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."
Morgan does a decent job painting the picture of a man who is always curious…always asking questions about the world around. Perhaps that is a trait for the great thinkers of the world. He has his own ideas about how things should be, but he is willing to have them changed; to be convinced of a new way of thinking. He seemed to be always welcome in circles to discuss scientific and political thoughts, but he wasn't one to force his view in conversation. Franklin was not some gregarious fellow whom always was the center of attention. Rather, he was the one who would ask a single question to help the speaker think of a different way of seeing things. Throughout the book, Morgan recounts how much people enjoyed his company and opinions.
Perhaps that is what makes Franklin such an appealing character to me and perhaps why this is a book to read now. Is Franklin the ideal as a politician? Some would say yes. He neither grandstands nor squelches your thoughts on an issue. He is willing to make a change to his opinion without compromising his ideals. He simply takes in more information to form his opinion. On the other hand, you have to wonder with the 24-hour news cycle these days, how successful Franklin would be in today's world. I could picture people calling him a "waffler" or watch the Daily Show replaying clips of him saying something completely opposite than what he is currently saying. Politicians don't seem to have the time or are too worried about their voters to change their opinions or take too long with making a well-thought decision (look at the flack that Obama is currently under for taking too long on Afghanistan strategy). We are a society that demands answers and change over night and raise our hands in the air incredulously when it doesn't happen.
What nagged me about this book, though, is I wondered why it was on the list in the first place. Franklin is indeed an engaging character and the way he was perceived during his time is admirable, but how does that help us understand our world now? Perhaps Newsweek wanted to say, "you think the world is bad now, we could have been under British rule?" I am not sure.
In the book, Morgan summarizes Franklin's life by saying:
We can know that many of his contemporaries came to recognize, that he did as much as any man ever has to shape the world he and they lived in. We can also know what they must have known, that the world was not quite what he would have liked to make it...Franklin knew how to value himself and what he did without mistaking himself for something more than one man among many…he honor(ed) his fellow man and woman no less than himself.I guess those are good traits in today's world, but is it realistic in our political world?
Up next, the fantastic book (already finished it), Random Family, by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc.
