Animates the erratic, often mercenary character of America's pen of independence and sometime anonymous political columnist whose pungent propaganda profoundly influenced the two greatest sociopolitical upheavals of the 18th century.

"The genial, witty, generous Franklin is here. So, too, is the practical businessman who managed at the age of forty-two to retire from his print shop and live the rest of his life largely off investments... Hawke seeks to present sides of Franklin seldom emphasized in previous works- the visionary, the politician, the electrical experimenter"--from jacket flaps.

The first to make use of materials in the Rockefeller Archives, this biography of John D. Rockefeller combines personal and corporate history to examine its subject's reputation, business practices, and personal values and attitudes.