By H. W. Brands © 2000 by H.W. Brands Published by Doubleday, New York, NY ISBN 0-385-49328-2 $35.00

There are few Americans about whom more has been written than Benjamin Franklin. To attempt yet another biography of one of America's most celebrated personalities places the writer squarely in the spotlight; will it match or exceed those that have come before, does the current author have any new insights into the multifaceted character that was Benjamin Franklin, can he or she sustain the readers curiosity in a man so many of us feel we already know? The answer to all these questions is a resounding yes. As we glide through the pages of The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin H. W. Brands demystifies an American icon, showing us the man instead and in the process makes it possible for us to appreciate him even more because he is a man and not a symbol.

The book opens with Franklin sitting in The Cockpit, a London building that had been, during the reign of Henry VIII, an arena dedicated to that particular bloodsport. The present building was built on its site yet the name and the atmosphere remained. Franklin was there to be humiliated before the Privy Council for his part in making public in America the letters of Thomas Hutchinson, the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, and others that were sent to an undersecretary of state in London. They were interpreted in America as evidence of a British plot to enslave the colonies and were in part responsible for producing the fury that resulted in the Boston Tea Party. All of London demanded to know who had released the letters. Franklin stepped forward when the charges and countercharges resulted in a duel where one of the parties was wounded and both claimed further satisfaction.

What ensued for the next two hours was the conversion of the man who by his most ardent effort and ceaseless toil sought the reconciliation of British America and Great Britain herself. Every invective hurled at him by Alexander Wedderburn, the solicitor general, drove Franklin another foot deeper into the revolutionary camp. Each disparaging remark against America and Americans, personified by Franklin, convinced him that he and his fellow citizens across the Atlantic were in fact of a country that was not British and therefore deserved to be a free and independent land. What George III and all his ministers had not been able to do in more than ten years Wedderburn accomplished in just over two hours. He was midwife at the birth of a revolutionary.

Brands then traces the life of Franklin from his birth in Boston on January 17, 1706 until his death in Philadelphia on April 17, 1790. We follow young Ben through the streets of Boston, now trying his hand at the chandler's trade of his father now longingly gazing at the merchant ships crowded in Boston harbor. To keep him from running off to sea his father apprenticed him to an older half brother as a printer. It was there that the nascent genius that was Benjamin Franklin found ample opportunity to sate itself. By fifteen he was writing for his brothers paper. At seventeen he fled a sometimes cruel but always usurious apprenticeship to set himself up in Philadelphia, the city that would become his adopted home.

We are there when Benjamin creates his most famous pseudonym, Richard Saunders, and when said Saunders creates "his" almanac. We stand with Franklin's son William as he assists his father with the now legendary kite flight. We journey with Franklin to England and France where he acts as America's unofficial goodwill ambassador and official agent for Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and other colonies. We are with him as his fame as a scientist, writer, inventor, and ladies man grows. We listen to him as he counsels patience to both American and British hotheads. We sit next to him in The Cockpit and witness his forced transformation from moderate to radical. We listen as he converses with the other men who have been delegated to draft of the Declaration of Independence. We are there when the French are convinced to support the American struggle with both money and men. We see him offer his wisdom and experience to those who are changing the Articles of Confederation into the Constitution of the United States. We sit quietly at his bedside as he passes into immortality.

The First American is a very readable book. It seems much shorter than its 716 pages. I found Brands' style engaging and very easy to understand. It reads more like a good novel than a biography. But the events of Benjamin Franklin's life seem more like the creation of a novelist than a biographer. Yet it is Brands' ability to humanize this most American of Americans, to help him off the pedestal history has raised for him and truly show us the amazingly complicated yet simple man that was Benjamin Franklin that is the books greatest gift. ---JBW

By Joseph J. Ellis © 2000 by Joseph J. Ellis Published by Alfred A. Knopf ISBN 0-375-40544-5 $26.00

I picked up a copy of Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis the way I pick up a lot of books, Kevin the owner of Bay Books in Half Moon Bay, CA puts it in my hand. I've been buying books from Kevin for close to twenty years and he knows my tastes almost as well as I do. He's seen me fluctuate from science fiction through the crime novels of James Elroy and others to history and biography. But that day he had two books in mind for me, The First American (see the review above) and Founding Brothers. I started with the Franklin biography and when I was finished picked up the other book I bought that day.

I had never read anything by Ellis before but immediately liked the concept proffered by the title. We are raised with concept of the Founding Fathers yet here was a book that seemed to imply first, that these larger than life figures were men, extraordinary men to be sure but just men and second, that these men were bound to one another by their shared experiences in the War for American Independence. Something more akin to a family than anything else. When my sixteen year old daughter Brittainy saw the title her first words were, "Isn't it supposed to be founding fathers? Didn't he get it wrong?" I tried to explain why Ellis chose to call them brothers but it was lost on her. When she saw me writing this she was still saying Ellis missed the mark.

On the contrary Ellis scores a hit in the dead center of the "X" ring with Founding Brothers. He turns out six separate yet interrelated stories of both familiar and lesser known events that occurred in the years following the close of the revolution. Each of these tales draws us into the character of the men who enact it. In the first chapter Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton share an "appointment at Weehawken" in The Duel. Having read Jefferson and the Gun-Men (see the last installment of "Between the Covers." ---Ed.) I already knew that Aaron Bur wasn't someone you'd want backing you up in a fight, political or otherwise but I had no idea that if Alexander Hamilton had treated me like he treated Burr I would have wanted to shoot him too.

In the ensuing five chapters Ellis takes us behind the scenes with the Founding Brothers as they interact with one another, wheeling and dealing to insure the fledgling American eagle is able to grow to maturity. In the Dinner Thomas Jefferson helps broker a deal between James Madison and Alexander Hamilton that helps Hamilton put the new United States on a firm financial footing and places the new nation's capital on the Potomac, in Madison's native Virginia. The Silence tells the story of how moral men fell into the immoral morass that would perpetuate the institution of slavery in America for almost another century. By agreeing amongst themselves simply not to discuss the issue they guaranteed that tens of thousands of future Americans would live in bondage while hundreds of thousands of others would fight and die in the struggle these "founding brothers" knew must surely come.

Ellis takes us inside "The Farewell Address" when George Washington steps down after his second term as president. He helps us understand the complex friendship between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams that alternated between alienation and affection. It is Ellis' ability to make these "founding brothers" seem as real as a next-door neighbor that makes this book worth reading. Each page brought me closer to these men and helped me understand what sort of fellows were able to create the America we now inhabit. As Ellis points out we view their actions through the lens of two hundred years worth of history, knowing that the land they sought to create did indeed survive, grow and prosper. We tend to forget that to Washington, Adam, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the others it was by no means a foregone conclusion.

Ellis' flowing style is a pleasure to read and his research is meticulous. There are insights and intelligences throughout The Founding Brothers. I liked it so well I bought his biography of Thomas Jefferson American Sphinx and am skipping though it now. Look for it in the next segment of "Between the Covers."---JBW