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Matthew Long's avatar

Great review Joel. I have not read this one. I did read the biography of Franklin written by Walter Isaacson which was excellent and I found Franklin to be a fascinating individual. He certainly did not conform to the mold or expectations of his era.

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Wayne Stiles's avatar

I found it interesting to read what you wrote of Franklin‘s account of leaving Boston by virtue of a loophole in his contract with his brother. I had heard that his brother resented Franklin’s success with his Silence Dogood letters, and so his brother began mistreating him. Franklin fled and lied to a ship boat captain that he had gotten a girl pregnant and needed to flee the city. Maybe all of this harmonizes, I had just never heard about the loophole. Wonderful summary of this book, Joel. It’s amazing how rationalism took such deep root that it led greater support to the error of deism. Such misdirection by such brilliant men makes me often wonder where we are off today.

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