Franklin (The Thomas Fleming Library)

Excellent documented references. Concentrated on the protagonist with minimum sentimentality. My personal affinity with Franklin is related to my residency in Franklin, MA and my student days at Franklin Technical Institute in Boston.

I had no idea who Benjamin Franklin was until reading this book. Oh, I knew a few generalities about him, but this book put flesh and blood to him and portrayed the very greatness that made up his life. He was crucial to the founding of this nation and we are fortunate to have had so brilliant a man with the profound moral integrity that he has to guide the establishment of this nation. I have been greatly deprived until now not to have known him. I recommend this book to everyone.

Benjamin Franklin's life as America's greatest diplomat is treated very properly in this book, but the e-book production by New Word City is a disgrace to Franklin, America's greatest printer. There are dozens of typos scattered throughout the text. Perhaps Fleming's 1971 text was scanned and put up for sale without any proofreading whatsoever. Franklin would certainly embrace the digital age but feel ashamed at this lack of quality control.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book about the remarkable Benjamin Franklin. I learned so much about the revolution, how hard the early Americans fought to stay inside the protection of England, and how France financed USA independence. I never knew how important Dr. Franklin was to the success of the revolution, or what a charming, canny, and hard working man he was. It made so many things so much more clear. I was thinking how much more engaging history class could be, it told through the biographies of the patriots. Highly recommended!

This book is well written, clear, and interesting. The biases of the author, however, are a bit too obvious and the quotes are unreferenced, so it is difficult to determine the veracity of some important points. Nevertheless, I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in knowing more about Franklin, who must have been one of the most interesting men in our history.

Kudos to Thomas Fleming for writing a very readable biography of Benjamin Franklin. Although it skips over much of his early adulthood and concentrates mostly on his life after age fifty, that is the period when Franklin made his greatest contributions to mankind and to the fledgling United States of America. Fleming tells the good and the bad, and leaves us with a story of a committed American patriot, willing to do whatever he could to bring about American independence, even though it cost him the love if his only son. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Highly recommended. I never realized what a great man Benjamin Franklin was. The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because of the many errors that I assume were the result of it being digitized. So many errors and so distracting. A great history lesson and tremendously written.

I learned a great deal more about Franklin than I already knew. Well written. (However, the author’s comments about John Adams I believe were far too negative.) A good read if you are interested in this amazing scientist and diplomat.