Chronicles the founding father's life and his multiple careers as a shopkeeper, writer, inventor, media baron, scientist, diplomat, business strategist, and political leader, while showing how his faith in the wisdom of the common citizen helped forge an American national identity based on the virtues of its middle class.

The first major biography of Benjamin Franklin in more than sixty years, The First American is history on a grand scale -- a work of meticulous scholarship and a thoroughly engaging portrait of the foremost American of his day. Diplomat, scientist, philosopher, businessman, inventor, wit, and bon vivant, Benjamin Franklin was in every respect America's first Renaissance man. The eighteenth-century genius comes to life in this masterwork by acclaimed...

This nontraditional tribute to Benjamin Franklin--all in almanac format--is brimming with humorous cartoons, instructive adages, and a wealth of information about a Founding Father who was as amusing as he was amazing. Benjamin Franklin devised armonicas and bifocals, helped bring us the Constitution and signed the Declaration of Independence, and even experimented with electricity and invented the Franklin stove. He amassed enough noteworthy accomplishments...

Presents a detailed tribute to the life and work of the Founding Father that augments parchment-style spreads with artwork, facts, and quotes.

In 1733, struggling printer John Peter Zenger scandalized colonial New York by launching the New-York Weekly Journal, which assailed the British governor as corrupt and arrogant -- a direct challenge to the prevailing law against "seditious libel", which criminalized any criticism of the government. Fronting for a group of powerful antiroyalist politicians, Zenger was jailed for nine months before his landmark trial in August 1735, when he was brilliantly...

Retains the essential beginnings which lead the reader into fascinating byways of American history and the craft which in large measure perpetuated it.

Straightforward life-story of a typically American character endowed with the great powers developed by self-education, who exerted vast influence as a citizen and statesman for his own day and for the future of his country.

A biography of the eighteenth-century printer, inventor, and statesman who played an influential role in the early history of the United States.