A Founding Father who was just made for the media age

NEW YORK —  Walter Isaacson’s not afraid to step into well-plowed terrain. When Amazon .com lists more than 500 books written by or about Benjamin Franklin, you have to wonder what the former head of Time magazine and CNN was thinking over the decade he spent researching a book of his own on America’s most famous kite flier. Why spend so many hours poring over 47 volumes of Franklin’s collected papers when so much is already known of the man?

The answer, Isaacson says, is a no-brainer.

“Every generation ought to look at Ben Franklin,” he says. “We can see our own selves reflected in him. We’re sort of an entrepreneurial, slightly ambitious generation of people these days, and you can see both the strengths of our time and some of our weaknesses in Benjamin Franklin.”

Isaacson’s new “Benjamin Franklin: An American Life” is a warts-and-all portrayal of the most complex, contemporary Founding Father, a man who would fit easily into today’s media culture. Isaacson, 51, sees Franklin as the first spin doctor, a man who created his own legend, that of a folksy lecher with a gift for aphorisms. He also portrays the eminent Philadelphian as an 18th century media mogul, who set up his own publishing house and distribution system. And there’s nothing more contemporary than Franklin’s history of family dysfunction, which includes feuds with his older brother, estrangement from his illegitimate son, and a common-law marriage that was long-lived but emotionally distant.

Yet Franklin had numerous virtues. He was a champion of the common man and democratic principles, involved in numerous civic projects and a brilliant diplomat who was an early practitioner of realpolitik. He edited Thomas Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence, changing the original “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” to the less religious, more rational “we hold these truths to be self-evident.” He was also a gifted scientist.

With all this, says Isaacson, Franklin’s best feature remains his “deep commitment to tolerance, which he helped make part of the American character. He also believed very strongly in the middle class and democracy, when the other Founders were quite elitist. And he spent his time on an enormous amount of civic endeavors, whether it was establishing the University of Pennsylvania, the first lending library, the local fire and insurance companies, in order to elevate the common citizen. His vision of democracy and meritocracy is the one that prevailed. And that, to me, is the coolest thing about him.”

Isaacson first became interested in Franklin about 12 years ago, when he was finishing a biography of Henry Kissinger and “was trying to understand the roots of realism in American diplomacy.” He originally intended to write a book about Franklin’s diplomatic history, but then became interested in him as a media genius, “and I thought I could relate to that. Then I read his autobiography and realized it has so many layers to it -- it’s partly there to tell a tale, partly there to teach some lessons, but partly there to spin an image. And I found that so tantalizing, I thought, ‘Why don’t I just write a biography?’ ”

Isaacson researched “An American Life” (Simon & Schuster) at Yale, which has Franklin’s papers, and the New York Public Library, and he spent some time in London, where Franklin’s family came from, searching through archives. He also bought Franklin’s collected papers on CD-ROM and read through them while on business trips. Despite his busy schedule directing various media enterprises, Isaacson says he managed to write almost every night.

The author is the first to acknowledge that his subject’s life has been well-covered by other biographers, including Edmund S. Morgan, who wrote last year’s critically acclaimed work. But Isaacson claims he covers new ground because he brings his own concerns to the mix.

“I had a couple of intense interests,” he says. “One was diplomacy, and I really loved the way he played a balance-of-power game with France, Spain, the Netherlands and Britain during the American Revolution and also wove in the notion of idealism as being an important component in American foreign policy. Secondly, his main occupation was as a media baron; he was a great editor, publisher, he created a chain of newspapers, a great book in ‘Poor Richard’s Almanac,’ and he even developed the U.S. Postal Service to be a sort of distribution system for him.”

Isaacson also sees Franklin as the one Founding Father who has never been chiseled in marble and placed on a pedestal. Social and witty, with a real common touch, Franklin was, says Isaacson, the kind of guy who would love going into a Radio Shack and checking out the gadgets, or strolling through a shopping mall. “Not only can you imagine sitting around talking to him about the latest technological fad or presidential scandal,” says Isaacson, “but you can imagine having a beer with him and hearing about his home life.”

Yet despite his image as a doddering, fun-loving sage, Franklin definitely had his dark side. In particular, his marriage is not exactly a portrait of domestic bliss. Franklin’s wife, Deborah, was a strong-willed, semiliterate woman who never left her home in Philadelphia, while Franklin spent many years overseas, including 15 of the last 17 years of his wife’s life. He was also known for his flirtations with younger women, although Isaacson claims none was sexually consummated.

“Franklin was not a great, intimate, loving husband,” says Isaacson. “I think he had a solid partnership with his wife, but he was not intellectually or romantically that intimate with her. To some extent it was a marriage of convenience.”

Isaacson’s biography could not have come out at a more propitious time. The Founding Fathers are hot in publishing circles these days, thanks to David McCullough’s bestselling biography of John Adams, and Joseph J. Ellis’ “Founding Brothers,” a look at various aspects of the Revolutionary generation. Isaacson believes this interest is cyclical and has a lot to do with a country that is reexploring its core beliefs.

“There are periods when we are very smug and self-assured as a nation, like the early ‘90s, in which the fundamental values and virtues ... [are] something we don’t pay much attention to,” he says. “Now we’re entering an era in which the Cold War framework doesn’t exist anymore and the challenges we face are more involved with religious fanaticism versus tolerance, democracy versus tyrannies, the ability to nurture and create democracies and republics where there have been dictatorships. And that makes us hearken back to the values that were the foundation for America.”

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‘Benjamin Franklin: An American Life’

What: Walter Isaacson book signing and discussion

Where: Los Angeles Central Library’s Mark Taper Auditorium, 630 W. 5th St.

When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.

Contact: (213) 228-7025