A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America

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Thorndike Press, 2005 - Biography & Autobiography - 973 pages
In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career
In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin-seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French-convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy.
When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of l778; and helped to negotiate the peace of l783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man.
In "A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.

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Contents

CAST OF CHARACTERS
11
Introduction
23
The First Mistake in Public
32
Copyright

16 other sections not shown

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About the author (2005)

Stacy Schiff was born on October 26, 1961 in Adams, Massachusetts. She received a B.A. degree from Williams College in 1982. She was a Senior Editor at Simon and Schuster until 1990. She is the author of several nonfiction books including Saint-Exupéry: A Biography about Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Cleopatra: A Life, and The Witches: Salem 1692. She won the Pulitzer Prize for biography for Véra: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov in 2000.