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A great improvisation : Franklin, France, and the birth of America / Stacy Schiff.

Schiff, Stacy.
2005
E183.8.F8 S35 2005 (Mapit)
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Title
A great improvisation : Franklin, France, and the birth of America / Stacy Schiff.
Author
Schiff, Stacy.
Edition
First edition.
ISBN
0805066330
Published
New York : Henry Holt, 2005.
Language
English
Description
xvii, 489 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Item Number
9780805066333
Call Number
E183.8.F8 S35 2005
Alternate Call Number
15.85
Dewey Decimal Classification
327.73044/09/033
Summary
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Schiff tells 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, he outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. 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.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 459-461) and index.
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The first mistake in public business is the going into it, 1776
Half the truth is often a great lie, 1776-1777
Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead, 1777
The cat in gloves catches no mice, 1777-1778
There is no such thing as a little enemy, 1778
Admiration is the daughter of ignorance, 1778
Success has ruined many a man, 1779
Everyone has wisdom enough to manage the affairs of his neighbors, 1780
The sting of a reproach is the truth of it, 1780-1781
Those who in quarrels interpose may get bloody nose, 1782
The absent are never without fault, 1783
Creditors have better memories than debtors, 1784-1785.

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