New York, NY: The Penguin Press, 2004. First Edition. Hardcover. “[I]t is a relatively selective study, focusing on specific aspects of this extraordinary man’s life that reveal a Benjamin Franklin who is different in important ways from the Franklin of our inherited common understanding,” (preface). In the two-hundred-some years since Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790) died, he has been oversimplified in the minds of Americans, according to Gordon Wood (b. 1933). Many..... More