Essay - The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin in His Book the Americanization...

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin

In his book The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, Wood (2004) demythifies the life of this Founding Father and shows how Franklin became the American icon he would become and how he came to support many of ***** ideas that would be embodied in t***** American Revolution.

***** book is not a biogr*****phy ***** the strict sense ***** is more interested in the development of ********** thinking over time. Still, the book is divided in***** chronological sections that do follow the course of Franklin's *****, beginning with his life through his career as a printer, then into ***** love for England and the British Empire up to the Stamp Act in 1765. Wood next develops the growing patriotism of Franklin lead-***** to the Revolution, and his activities during the Revolution itself are identified as diplomatic missions. The last chapter leads ***** the title of ***** ***** as it is called "Becoming an *****," addressing Fr*****klin's reputation as ***** grew once the new nation was *****med. In essence, all of the patriots of ***** time were Americanized in ***** they had been British subjects and were transformed along with the country when they won the war and created a ***** nation.

Franklin is seen in ***** book not as ***** American patriot-from-the-first that people might imagine but ***** a man who ***** much more loyal to England than ***** and who came to accept the ***** cause only after a good deal ***** exami***** and consideration of events *****n unfolding. He was Americanized be***** he was slowly convinced that the American cause was more just for the colonies than ***** rule. Much ***** ***** adulation of Franklin derives from the publication of his autobiography some years after it ***** written. When the manuscript ended up with a man named Abel James, the latter wrote to Franklin, then in France, ***** the work "would be useful & entertaining not only ***** a few, but to millions" (p. 202). This is precisely what happened, of course, and the ***** continues to be an inspiration ***** readers to this day. At the *****, James could tell Franklin that he knew of no o*****r character so able ***** promote certain virtues and reach the young people of the time.

Of course, as Wood shows, Franklin was not a man defined only by the sorts of virtues he promoted in his autobiography, mean*****g the virtues of hard work and thrift, among others. Franklin's more rakish side has log been known, though it tends to be ignored by ********** reading the Autobiography because Franklin does not write about ***** aspect of his life. That is not surprising given that he wrote ***** book in the first place to teach certain virtues to his son.

***** of ***** reasons why Franklin shifted from a m*****n not entirely convinced of the rightness of ***** anti-British sen*****nt he saw in the developing revolution to a committed revolutionist is noted by ***** as certain rumors and suspicions