| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.4

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 88.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin. By H. W. Brands. (New York: Doubleday, 2000. viii, 759 pp. $35.00, ISBN 0-385-49328-2.)

H. W. Brands has written an absorbing single-volume biography of Benjamin Franklin. Not only is it as encyclopedic as one volume can be, but the writing style is so engaging that Brands's work should supplant Carl Van Doren's Benjamin Franklin (1938) as the standard Franklin biography for the general reading public. 1

Brands brings to life both Franklin and his times. His rich narrative captures Franklin's youth in Boston and his rise to prominence in Philadelphia. Brands chronicles the seemingly endless curiosity and inventiveness that made up Franklin's inquisitive manner. He demonstrates how Franklin's profound love for England corroded in the course of the lengthy Anglo-American crisis. Finally, Brands explicates Franklin's wartime service as an American diplomat, showing the contributions he made toward securing the alliance with France in 1778 and the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris. . . .

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