Becoming Benjamin Franklin

About this book

Unlike conventional approaches to biography, Seavey's study sets apart the Autobiography and its provenance for special focus. However, like a biography, this is also a study of Franklin's personality as it developed from his birth is Boston to his death. His own self-understanding has posed a particular challenge to the students of his life. The great impediment to biographies of Franklin is that he took charge of the territory first. He was intensely aware of his own identity all his life, and this book takes a more comprehensive view of his writings as manifestation of a developing self.