Volume 49, Number 14 · September 26, 2002
Wise Men
By Gordon S. Wood
Benjamin Franklin
by Edmund S. Morgan
Yale University Press, 339 pp., $24.95
It is wonderful to have another book by Edmund S. Morgan, and that one on Benjamin Franklin, who is not only one of the greatest of America's Founders but also someone who would have appreciated Morgan's offbeat humor and engaging personality. At the age of eighty-six most scholars would have long since put down their pens and settled for chairing sessions at scholarly meetings. But not Morgan. As readers of these pages know from his sparkling reviews, four dozen of which have appeared over the past three decades, he is still very actively thinking and writing about history. He also spends a lot of time now on woodturning, of which he is a master, making beautiful bowls and other wooden vessels. But, as this superb short biography of Franklin demonstrates, as a historian he is still as active and sharp as ever, and for that we can be very grateful.
Review, 4702 words
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