Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire

Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire PDF Author: Carla J. Mulford
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199384193
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 449

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Book Description
Drawing from Benjamin Franklin's published and unpublished papers, including letters, notes, and marginalia, Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire examines how the early modern liberalism of Franklin's youthful intellectual life helped foster his vision of independence from Britain that became his hallmark achievement. In the early chapters, Carla Mulford explores the impact of Franklin's family history - especially their difficult times during the English Civil War - on Franklin's intellectual life and his personal and political goals. The book's middle chapters show how Franklin's fascination with British imperial strategy grew from his own analyses of the financial, environmental, and commercial potential of North America. Franklin's involvement in Pennsylvania's politics led him to devise strategies for monetary stability, intercolonial trade, Indian affairs, and imperial defense that would have assisted the British Empire in its effort to take over the world. When Franklin realized that the goals of British ministers were to subordinate colonists in a system that assisted the lives of Britons in England but undermined the wellbeing of North Americans, he began to criticize the goals of British imperialism. Mulford argues that Franklin's turn away from the British Empire began in the 1750s - not the 1770s, as most historians have suggested - and occurred as a result of Franklin's perceptive analyses of what the British Empire was doing not just in the American colonies but in Ireland and India. In the last chapters, Mulford reveals how Franklin ultimately grew restive, formed alliances with French intellectuals and the court of France, and condemned the actions of the British Empire and imperial politicians. As a whole, Mulford's book provides a fresh reading of a much-admired founding father, suggesting how Franklin's conception of the freedoms espoused in England's ages old Magna Carta could be realized in the political life of the new American nation.

Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire

Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire PDF Author: Carla J. Mulford
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199384193
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 449

Get Book

Book Description
Drawing from Benjamin Franklin's published and unpublished papers, including letters, notes, and marginalia, Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire examines how the early modern liberalism of Franklin's youthful intellectual life helped foster his vision of independence from Britain that became his hallmark achievement. In the early chapters, Carla Mulford explores the impact of Franklin's family history - especially their difficult times during the English Civil War - on Franklin's intellectual life and his personal and political goals. The book's middle chapters show how Franklin's fascination with British imperial strategy grew from his own analyses of the financial, environmental, and commercial potential of North America. Franklin's involvement in Pennsylvania's politics led him to devise strategies for monetary stability, intercolonial trade, Indian affairs, and imperial defense that would have assisted the British Empire in its effort to take over the world. When Franklin realized that the goals of British ministers were to subordinate colonists in a system that assisted the lives of Britons in England but undermined the wellbeing of North Americans, he began to criticize the goals of British imperialism. Mulford argues that Franklin's turn away from the British Empire began in the 1750s - not the 1770s, as most historians have suggested - and occurred as a result of Franklin's perceptive analyses of what the British Empire was doing not just in the American colonies but in Ireland and India. In the last chapters, Mulford reveals how Franklin ultimately grew restive, formed alliances with French intellectuals and the court of France, and condemned the actions of the British Empire and imperial politicians. As a whole, Mulford's book provides a fresh reading of a much-admired founding father, suggesting how Franklin's conception of the freedoms espoused in England's ages old Magna Carta could be realized in the political life of the new American nation.

Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire

Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire PDF Author: Carla Mulford
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780199384211
Category : Statesmen
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire

Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire PDF Author: Carla J. Mulford
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190273186
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Drawing from Benjamin Franklin's published and unpublished papers, including letters, notes, and marginalia, Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire examines how the early modern liberalism of Franklin's youthful intellectual life helped foster his vision of independence from Britain that became his hallmark achievement. In the early chapters, Carla Mulford explores the impact of Franklin's family history - especially their difficult times during the English Civil War - on Franklin's intellectual life and his personal and political goals. The book's middle chapters show how Franklin's fascination with British imperial strategy grew from his own analyses of the financial, environmental, and commercial potential of North America. Franklin's involvement in Pennsylvania's politics led him to devise strategies for monetary stability, intercolonial trade, Indian affairs, and imperial defense that would have assisted the British Empire in its effort to take over the world. When Franklin realized that the goals of British ministers were to subordinate colonists in a system that assisted the lives of Britons in England but undermined the wellbeing of North Americans, he began to criticize the goals of British imperialism. Mulford argues that Franklin's turn away from the British Empire began in the 1750s - not the 1770s, as most historians have suggested - and occurred as a result of Franklin's perceptive analyses of what the British Empire was doing not just in the American colonies but in Ireland and India. In the last chapters, Mulford reveals how Franklin ultimately grew restive, formed alliances with French intellectuals and the court of France, and condemned the actions of the British Empire and imperial politicians. As a whole, Mulford's book provides a fresh reading of a much-admired founding father, suggesting how Franklin's conception of the freedoms espoused in England's ages old Magna Carta could be realized in the political life of the new American nation.

Empire for Liberty

Empire for Liberty PDF Author: Richard H. Immerman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9781400834280
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
How could the United States, a nation founded on the principles of liberty and equality, have produced Abu Ghraib, torture memos, Plamegate, and warrantless wiretaps? Did America set out to become an empire? And if so, how has it reconciled its imperialism--and in some cases, its crimes--with the idea of liberty so forcefully expressed in the Declaration of Independence? Empire for Liberty tells the story of men who used the rhetoric of liberty to further their imperial ambitions, and reveals that the quest for empire has guided the nation's architects from the very beginning--and continues to do so today. Historian Richard Immerman paints nuanced portraits of six exceptional public figures who manifestly influenced the course of American empire: Benjamin Franklin, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Seward, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Foster Dulles, and Paul Wolfowitz. Each played a pivotal role as empire builder and, with the exception of Adams, did so without occupying the presidency. Taking readers from the founding of the republic to the Global War on Terror, Immerman shows how each individual's influence arose from a keen sensitivity to the concerns of his times; how the trajectory of American empire was relentless if not straight; and how these shrewd and powerful individuals shaped their rhetoric about liberty to suit their needs. But as Immerman demonstrates in this timely and provocative book, liberty and empire were on a collision course. And in the Global War on Terror and the occupation of Iraq, they violently collided.

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Gordon S. Wood
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9780143035282
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
“I cannot remember ever reading a work of history and biography that is quite so fluent, so perfectly composed and balanced . . .” —The New York Sun “Exceptionally rich perspective on one of the most accomplished, complex, and unpredictable Americans of his own time or any other.” —The Washington Post Book World From the most respected chronicler of the early days of the Republic—and winner of both the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes—comes a landmark work that rescues Benjamin Franklin from a mythology that has blinded generations of Americans to the man he really was and makes sense of aspects of his life and career that would have otherwise remained mysterious. In place of the genial polymath, self-improver, and quintessential American, Gordon S. Wood reveals a figure much more ambiguous and complex—and much more interesting. Charting the passage of Franklin’s life and reputation from relative popular indifference (his death, while the occasion for mass mourning in France, was widely ignored in America) to posthumous glory, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin sheds invaluable light on the emergence of our country’s idea of itself.

The complete works ... of ... Benjamin Franklin

The complete works ... of ... Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Benjamin Franklin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 586

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Book Description


The Political Thought of Benjamin Franklin

The Political Thought of Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Benjamin Franklin
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 9780872206830
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 534

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Book Description
Too often dismissed as the least philosophic of the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin had a deep and lasting impact on the shape of American political thought. In this substantial collection of Franklin's letters, essays, and lesser-known papers, Ralph Ketcham traces the development of Franklin's practical-and distinctly American-political thought from his earliest Silence Dogood essays to his final writings on the Constitution and The Evils of the Slave Trade.

Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin PDF Author: Thomas S. Kidd
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300217498
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 285

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Book Description
Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- INTRODUCTION -- 1. Child of the Puritans -- 2. Exodus to Philadelphia, Sojourn in London -- 3. Philadelphia Printer -- 4. Poor Richard -- 5. Ben Franklin's Closest Evangelical Friend -- 6. Electrical Man -- 7. Tribune of the People -- 8. Diplomat -- 9. The Pillar of Fire -- CONCLUSION -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z

The Complete Works in Philosophy, Politics, and Morals, of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Now First Collected and Arranged

The Complete Works in Philosophy, Politics, and Morals, of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Now First Collected and Arranged PDF Author: Benjamin Franklin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American literature
Languages : en
Pages : 586

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Book Description


Benjamin Franklin, Natural Right, and the Art of Virtue

Benjamin Franklin, Natural Right, and the Art of Virtue PDF Author: Kevin Slack
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1580465633
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
A thorough examination of Benjamin Franklin's works on philosophy and politics, arguing that Franklin was a philosopher of natural right