Introducing Season 2: ON Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson

Introducing ON Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson - an intimate behind the scenes interview to understand Benjamin Franklin’s remarkable life.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And he trampling over my rights makes my blood boil exceedingly.
That's how you know I'm an American.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Those are the words of Benjamin Franklin, and.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
We think him as a doddling dude flying a kite
in no rain. But those electricity experiments are the most
important scientific discoveries of the time.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
But maybe the reason we have misunderstood this most fascinating
founding father for so long was Franklin himself.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
One of Franklin's greatest inventions is the character of Bed Franklin.
I mean, he was never early to bed, an early
to rise type person.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I'm Evan Ratliffe. Last season, in my conversations with epic
biographer Walter isaacsonon we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk.
This time we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin,
another genius with even more facets and possibly more relevance,
who's desperate to be dusted off from history.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
His media empire makes him the most successful self made
business person in America. And if you see the charging
makes of the Gulf Stream, it's remarkably similar to the
one that's now on the NASA website. He loves leading
the good life, even playing chess while he's in the
bathtub with one of his mistresses.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Benjamin Franklin is so many things.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
A writer and printer, He created poor Richard, and he
created newspapers.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
A scientist, an inventor whose work is still in use today.
They would consecrate the bells of churches to ward off
the lightning, but the lightning kept striking church steeples, and
Franklin said, maybe we should try some other theory of it.
An unlikely celebrity at home and abroad.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Crowds turn out and women shart wearing their hair and
what was called the coiffor a la Franklin.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
But perhaps more importantly, a key architect of a new nation.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Franklin was the only one of the founders who is
involved in all four of the great founding documents of America.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
But there are parts of his story that history books
like to skip over.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Everybody's wondering what side is he going to be on,
and before he can announce it, he has to have
a meeting with his illegitimate son.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
But by the end of his very long life he
lives to be eighty four years old. He had earned
near universal love as the Sage of Philadelphia, and maybe
more importantly, a man uniquely gifted at bringing people together
and without rival, and his devotion to democracy.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
The only other person who could have possibly been the
first president would have been Benjamin Franklin, but he's too
old and wants Washington to do it voluntarily. Forsaking power
is at the heart of what a democracy is.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Listen to on Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on America's
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