Tag: American Revolution

Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

Ben Franklin's Song

On the second page of his biography of Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson offers a thumbnail sketch of his subject: “He was, during his eighty-four-year-long life, America’s best scientist, inventor, dimplomat, writer, and business strategist, and he was also one of its most practical, though not most profound, political thinkers. He proved by flying a kite …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/14/benjamin-franklin-by-walter-isaacson/

The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman

Tuchman’s thesis is that governments frequently, through sheer obstinacy and stupidity, do things that are injurious to their own interests. She cites four primary historical examples: the Trojans in the Trojan War, the papacy preceding the Reformation, the British government during the American Revolution, and the government of the United States during the Vietnam War. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2012/06/18/the-march-of-folly-by-barbara-tuchman/

1776 by David McCullough

This is really good stuff. Personal accounts and testimonies from those who were there. Yet it seems like a miracle that America was able to win its revolution. The campaign was botched and bungled from the beginning, and Washington was hardly a military leader of the first order. Providence certainly played a role in the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/05/14/1776-by-david-mccullough/