Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire [Book Review]

There could hardly be two more different treatments of Ben Franklin than the studies by Carla Mulford and George Goodwin. Mulford's Benjamin Franklin and the Ends of Empire is the fruit of a lifetime's study of the statesman and polymath, a polemically engaged and bold attempt to lend coherence to a famously multifaceted career. Goodwin's Benjamin Franklin in London is altogether more modest. Elegantly written, it serves as an enjoyable introduction to Franklin's time in the imperial metropolis. Replete with anecdote, it is short on analysis, and tends to defer to the scholars on whose researches it often depends, while Mulford's arguments are clearly intended to challenge scholars (though the book is illuminating for nonexperts).