Benjamin Franklin is regarded as one of the finest minds of colonial America. Franklin explored many interests, allowing him to play many roles during his lifetime (as P.M. Zall states): "inventor, scientist, entrepreneur, political activist, statesman, diplomat, cultural gurr, social revolutionist." However, until his death, Franklin thought of himself as merely a printer and a writer. In his Autobiography, he recounts much of his life, beginning with his genealogy and ending unfinished at a point prior to the Revolutionary War.

Essentially, Ben Franklin's Autobiography contains "unstructured" structure, in which the narrative meanders along different episodes of Franklin's life. The division of the Autobiography into four Parts, solely a modern addition by critics, is not extremely helpful in partitioning the events in the book into easily understandable parts for the reader. What the reader sees are blocks of text occaisionally separated by poetic or witty verses Franklin has included, an obstacle that sometimes allows the experience of reading the Autobiography to be monotonous. The content, and by association, the themes, are somewhat obscured to modern readers by the structure of the book as well as Franklin's language. However, the organization of the book is not completely ineffective for the reason that it lends to the reader's understanding of four different mindsets of Benjamin Franklin, allowing for a more multifaceted understanding of Franklin himself. All four of these mindsets contain similar themes of acheiving the American Dream and becoming a better person with age.

While Franklin's Autobiography has high historic value, its other value is the documented story about the man behind the myth. Much of why I liked reading Franklin's memoirs was due to the subject matter itself. In this book, he is able to provide a picture of success of a man who possessed many admirable qualities, as well as many vices. Interestingly, Franklin's best material is the anecdotal text in Part One. These anecdotes, apparently to Franklin "of no Importance to others," are what lends a human quality to the man whom history has magnified to mythical proportions. I feel that the bulk to the work, with the exception of Part Two, is a rather dry account of Franklin's accomplishments. Had Franklin continued his memoirs as advice for hig son (as originially intended) rather than write for the public, the tone of the work might have been different.

Here, then, is the opinion of a high school student who chose this book to read for school: Through no fault of his own, Franklin has written a work that contains a weak structure and is difficult for modern readers to understand. It is for these two reasons that I would not recommend the Autobiography for light beach reading. However, I would strongly recommend it for historical research. Franklin's accounts of incidents in history provide excellent primary sources. Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography will please those who are avid history buffs and who have the patience to wade through the language of colonial America. Also highly recommended as an enlightening book. Aside from his political achievements, he was a scientist/ inventor, a humanitarian, a founder of the first library, fire station, and university in the American colonies. It's not easy to get through, but once you do, you'll see how amazing Franklin was.

I find the Autobiography a fascinating look into the everyday life of our country's Colonial age! Franklin's narration is clean and descriptive and totally engrossing! The story of his early life and how he came to be a businessman and statesman is well worth 5 stars but also included in this gem is "The Selected Writings" which includes "The Way to Wealth" as well as five more sections (Essays to Do Good, Franklin the Scientist, Franklin and the Revolution, The Family Man, and Something of His Religion) all include various letters and essays and are an entertaining look into Franklin and his view of the world! For an American History buff this is a must book for the collection and for Children... this book is a fantastic way to introduce any Child to History and the REAL Life of one of our beloved Signers of the Declaration of Independence!

In many ways, this is, to someone coming to it for the first time, a very surprising book. For one thing, it is amazingly incomplete. Franklin is, of course, one of the most famous Americans who ever lived, and his accomplishments in a wide array of endeavors are a part of American lore and popular history. A great deal of this lore and many of his accomplishments are missing from this account of his life. He never finished the autobiography, earlier in his life because he was too busy with what he terms public "employments," and later in life because the opium he was taking for kidney stones left him unable to concentrate sufficiently. Had Franklin been able to write about every period of his life and all of his achievements, his AUTOBIOGRAPHY would have been one of the most remarkable documents every produced. It is amazingly compelling in its incomplete state.

As a serious reader, I was delighted in the way that Franklin is obsessed with the reading habits of other people. Over and over in the course of his memoir, he remarks that such and such a person was fond of reading, or owned a large number of books, or was a poet or author. Clearly, it is one of the qualities he most admires in others, and one of the qualities in a person that makes him want to know a person. He finds other readers to be kindred souls.

If one is familiar with the Pragmatists, one finds many pragmatist tendencies in Franklin's thought. He is concerned less with ideals than with ideas that work and are functional. For instance, at one point he implies that while his own beliefs lean more towards the deistical, he sees formal religion as playing an important role in life and society, and he goes out of his way to never criticize the faith of another person. His pragmatism comes out also in list of the virtues, which is one of the more famous and striking parts of his book. As is well known, he compiled a list of 13 virtues, which he felt summed up all the virtues taught by all philosophers and religions. But they are practical, not abstract virtues. He states that he wanted to articulate virtues that possessed simple and not complex ideas. Why? The simpler the idea, the easier to apply. And in formulating his list of virtues, he is more concerned with the manner in which these virtues can be actualized in one's life. Franklin has utterly no interest in abstract morality.

One of Franklin's virtues is humility, and his humility comes out in the form of his book. His narrative is exceedingly informal, not merely in the first part, which was ostensibly addressed to his son, but in the later sections (the autobiography was composed upon four separate occasions). The informal nature of the book displays Franklin's intended humility, and for Franklin, seeming to be so is nearly as important as actually being so. For part of the function of the virtues in an individual is not merely to make that particular person virtuous, but to function as an example to others. This notion of his being an example to other people is one of the major themes in his book. His life, he believes, is an exemplary one. And he believes that by sharing the details of his own life, he can serves as a template for other lives.

One striking aspect of his book is what one could almost call Secular Puritanism. Although Franklin was hardly a prude, he was nonetheless very much a child of the Puritans. This is not displayed merely in his promotion of the virtues, but in his abstaining from excessiveness in eating, drinking, conversation, or whatever. Franklin is intensely concerned with self-governance.

I think anyone not having read this before will be surprised at how readable and enjoyable this is. I think also one can only regret that Franklin was not able to write about the entirety of his life. He was a remarkable man with a remarkable story to tell.