The Founder's Burden: Benjamin Franklin: The Wire Behind the Lightning and the American Revolution
He never led an army or became president - but without him, the American Revolution probably dies in the dark.
Benjamin Franklin: The Wire Behind the Lightning and the American Revolution follows the candle-maker's son from the ink-stained alleys of Boston and Philadelphia to the gilded salons of Versailles and the closed rooms where empires rose or fell on a signature.
This volume in The Founder's Burden series strips Franklin of the easy myths and drops him back into the messy reality of a war that was held together with bad credit, improvised committees and fragile alliances. We see him as:
The printer-organiser who quietly built the postal and communications systems that kept the rebellion from flying apart.
The ageing "imperial reformer" who went to London to save the British Empire and came home convinced it could not be saved.
The improbable celebrity in Paris whose scientific fame and carefully crafted persona helped drag France into a war that nearly bankrupted the Bourbon monarchy - and saved the American cause.
The hard-nosed negotiator who refused any peace that did not recognise full independence and pushed Britain into a generous Treaty of Paris that gave the new republic room to grow.
The weary elder at the Constitutional Convention, signing a deeply imperfect document because he knew that no republic survives on theory alone.
Rather than a cradle-to-grave worship piece, this book focuses on what Franklin actually did to keep the American Revolution alive: the wiring, not just the lightning. It follows his long arc from imperial loyalist to reluctant rebel, from self-made tradesman to statesman, and from celebrated pragmatist to a symbol that later generations would bend to their own purposes.
For readers who want the story of the Revolution told from the engine room rather than the balcony, Franklin's life offers a ruthless education: institutions matter, systems matter, and people who never wear a general's uniform can still decide whether a revolution lives or dies.
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