It’s safe to say that Walter Isaacson (without involving him in a comparison in which he would inevitably suffer), whose Benjamin Franklin: An American Life is out this week, is the foremost multitasker in the media world. He was, by consensus, the best writer in eighteenth-century America, as well as the nation’s first media tycoon and its shrewdest diplomat. His reputation for technological wizardry was such that during the Revolution, rumors ran rampant that he’d developed a system of mirrors that could incinerate the British fleet from afar, a death ray of a kind Don Rumsfeld might envy. He had a string of mistresslike friendships (alas for him unconsummated). He had Madonna’s talent for self-invention, with an arsenal of pseudonyms, and the famous fur hat he wore in Paris to reinforce his image as a provincial of uncommon ability. Cheering crowds would greet him when he returned to Philadelphia from trips abroad.

It’s hard to imagine that homely old Ben Franklin, peering out from behind his bifocals with that eighteenth-century mullet (among the few things he didn’t invent was the comb-over), was perhaps the most glamorous person in the world. OL4288868W Page_number_confidence 95.45 Pages 630 Partner Innodata Pdf_module_version 0.0.15 Ppi 360 Rcs_key 24143 Republisher_date 20210809105508 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 590 Scandate 20210804210751 Scanner Scanningcenter cebu Scribe3_search_catalog isbn Scribe3_search_id 9780743258074 Tts_version 4.Electric Adventure: In a Franklin biography, the brilliant light is always on, but who's home? Urn:lcp:benjaminfranklin0000isaa:epub:ab5a4410-6352-4631-8697-24b231cc8220 Foldoutcount 0 Grant_report Arcadia #4281 Identifier benjaminfranklin0000isaa Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t46r43n6h Invoice 2089 Isbn 074325807X Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-alpha-20201231-10-g1236 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9944 Ocr_module_version 0.0.13 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA16716 Openlibrary_edition Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 09:01:11 Boxid IA40203203 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier

Benjamin franklin book walter isaacson