Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

“Larson’s elegantly written twin biography reveals that the partnership of Franklin and Washington was indispensable to the success of the Revolution.” —Gordon S. Wooden 

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a masterful, first-of-its-kind twin biography of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, illuminating their partnership’s enduring significance. 

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • One among Washington Publish‘s “10 Books to Learn in February” • One among USA Right this moment’s “Should-Learn Books” of Winter 2020  •  One among Publishers Weekly‘s “Prime Ten” Spring 2020 Memoirs/Biographies

Theirs was a three-decade-long bond that, greater than every other pairing, would forge america. Vastly totally different males, Benjamin Franklin—an abolitionist freethinker from the city north—and George Washington—a slavehold­ing common from the agrarian south—had been the indispensable authors of American independence and the 2 key companions within the try and craft a extra good union on the Constitutional Conference, held in Franklin’s Philadelphia and presided over by Washington. And but their teamwork has been little remarked upon within the centuries since.

Illuminating Franklin and Washington’s relationship with hanging new element and power, Pulitzer Prize–successful historian Edward J. Larson reveals that theirs was really an intimate working friendship that amplified the skills of every for collective development of the American challenge.

After lengthy sup­porting British rule, each Franklin and Washington turned key early proponents of inde­pendence. Their friendship gained historic significance throughout the American Revolution, when Franklin led America’s diplomatic mission in Europe (securing cash and an alliance with France) and Washington commanded the Continental Military. Victory required each of those efforts to succeed, and success, in flip, required their mutual coordination and cooperation. Within the 1780s, the 2 sought to strengthen the union, resulting in the framing and ratification of the Structure, the founding doc that bears their stamp.

Franklin and Washington—the 2 most revered figures within the early republic—staked their lives and fortunes on the American experiment in liberty and had been dedicated to its preservation. Right this moment america is the world’s nice tremendous­energy, and but we additionally wrestle with the federal government Franklin and Washington created greater than two centuries in the past—the ability of the chief department, the precept of checks and balances, the electoral faculty—in addition to the injuries of their compromise over slavery. Now, because the founding establishments seem beneath new stress, it’s time to perceive their origins by means of the recent lens of Larson’s Franklin & Washington, a serious addition to the literature of the founding period.