Benjamin Franklin
by Carl Van Doren
The 1938 Pulitzer-winning biography, still prized for its prose and sympathy: printer, scientist, diplomat, sage.
Read it if…
you want the classic Franklin biography.
See the book →
Skip it if…
you want modern scholarship; see Isaacson.
Try instead: Benjamin Franklin's Book of Virtues →
Three things you will actually use
- Many lives in one.
- Usefulness is the aim.
- Charm is diplomacy.
Do this first
Read the chapters on Paris.
Our verdict
Van Doren's Franklin.
See the book →
Compare with other Character books
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Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay · Character
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