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When the name Benjamin Franklin is mentioned, one"s mind almost instantly goes to images of kites, lighting, the printing press, and the timeworn parchment of the Declaration of Independence. We hear the revolutionary band playing and picture a balding, portly colonial gentleman penning little bits of wisdom, but we certainly do not think of him swimming in the ocean or questioning religious absolutes. In Benjamin Franklin, Edmund S. Morgan presents readers with a mystery of a man and attempts to piece together the mosaic of endeavors and passions that make him such a wonder.

Edmund Sears Morgan was born in 1916 in Minneapolis, MN. In addition to graduating from Harvard University in 1937 and receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1942, Morgan underwent graduate studies at the University of London"s London School of Economics. Like Franklin"s, Morgan"s career endeavors have varied widely, from manufacturing instruments in The Massachusetts Institute of Technology to professorships of social sciences, history, and research at such accredited universities as Brown and Yale. Most recently, Morgan has been awarded the Organization of American Historians Distinguished Services Award in 1998 and the National Humanities Medal in 2000. Morgan also holds honorary degrees from Rutgers University, Brown University, Colgate University, Washington College, William and Mary, The University of New Haven, Williams College, and Smith College. From the introduction to Benjamin Franklin, Morgan makes clear his passion for delving deeply into the colonial heritage of the United States, and it would appear from his extensive education and accolades that he is well equipped to do so.

Morgan"s biography of Franklin presents a portrait of the famed man with the kite that one might not expect in a scholarly biography. It is evident from the beginning that Morgan wants the reader to see beyond the characterizations of Franklin that we are often provided with. Benjamin Franklin is commonly known for three things: his experiments with electricity, his writings, and his involvement in the American Revolution. Underlying these, however, are the traits that Morgan really wishes for the reader to recognize in Franklin: curiosity and fascination with the world around him, a peaceful passion for the intellectual strength of individuals, and a charitable social servitude.

Morgan addresses Franklin"s experiments with electricity straightaway, crediting Franklin with the first successful (though small-scale) use of a lightning rod. An English friend"s sending him a glass bottle coated with aluminum prompted his interest in electricity. Scientists at the University of Leyden had been experimenting with storing static electricity by rotating such a bottle against a piece of felt. What might have been a novel gift to someone else became a fascination to Franklin. Contrary to what one might think, though, it did not become Franklin"s life"s work. In fact, electricity was only one of innumerable complexities of nature that captured Franklin"s attention and occupied his laboratory. As Morgan states, "for Franklin the world was so full of strange things that it is hard to keep up with his efforts to understand them." Franklin also conducted studies on ocean currents and their effects on travel, pre-germ disease theory causes for the common cold, and chemistry. For a while, Franklin carried a vial of oil in the hollows of his bamboo cane in order to observe the effects of oil on the different bodies of water he passed.

In addition to an ongoing inquisitiveness about the world he lived in, Franklin also undertook a quest to share the workings of his more philosophical intellect. Though he fled his apprenticeship as a printer early in his career, Franklin never abandoned the craft. He was constantly printing philosophical tracts anonymously, along with the well-known Poor Richard"s Almanack. Franklin even succeeded in publishing countless satirical hoax speeches, among them one by a woman having her fifth illegitimate child who claims to be obeying the command of God "to increase and multiply." Another of Franklin"s most famed pieces of writing is his list of the virtues that will lead one to moral perfection. Among these are Temperance, Chastity, Cleanliness, and Humility. These came, not from Puritan religious doctrine and preaching, but from Franklin"s own struggle with the complexities of good works versus faith. The crux of this, and Franklin"s other publications on religion, seems to be that an individual can be moral and god-fearing without the dogmatic presence of the church. Interestingly, though, Franklin never identified himself with writers or philosophers; he was a printer. This, coupled with the fact that he usually wrote anonymously, establishes Franklin as someone who did not desire renown as an originator of great thoughts. When other thinkers challenged Franklin"s publications or ideas, he rarely responded. He simply wanted people to use what he shared with them.

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