- Tom Wolfe,
from Digibabble, Fairy Dust, and the Human Anthill
in Hooking Up (published in 2000)

Wolfe, I would argue is the greatest writer and social critic of the last 50 years. His three novels are all astonishing works of great literature, and his essays are light years ahead of his contemporaries in their identification, documentation, and critique of social trends.

His books are worth reading and re-reading.

- Johannes Brahms

quoted in Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment (P.S.) by James R. Gaines – a delightful read, by the way. I’m continuing my research for Famous Men of the 18th Century and will be writing chapters on both Bach and Frederick the Great. Gaines’ book is a fascinating double-biography spun from the single encounter between the two men and highlighting the two very different worldviews they represented.

Our history study packages are typically designed for use in one semester, so now’s the time to order for the new year. Break out of the textbook box. Give your children real stories about real people. Reclaim history for them and for yourself.
Greenleaf Press 2010 Retail Catalog

DK had a meteoric history as a book developer, packager, and then international publisher. They fell on hard times in 2000 – wiped out over several foolish marketing decisions when they signed on to do the Star Wars Visual Dictionary. The Phantom Menace didn’t do as well as expected at the box office, a new manager – unfamiliar with the book business- make grandiose promises about sales and printed several million copies more than what could be sold. In the end, DK was sold to the Pearson Group (which also owns Penguin Books). I was cautiously optimistic that the management at Pearson would realize what a resource they had in the Eyewitness Series. Sadly, it appears they do not. The series has been slowly dying, title by title over the past five years. Renaissance is gone. Da Vinci is gone. Shakespeare is gone. Everest, India, & Russia are gone. Perspective, Monet, & Impressionism are gone.

I hope they’ll keep the remaining titles in print, but odds are that many of them will not be reprinted when the current stock sells out. Greenleaf carries them all. I suppose they will become collector items like the old Landmark series from Random House.

A few years ago, Rohl wrote a one-volume reconstruction of the history of the Old Testament. His imaginative account marshals all of the most recent archeological evidence to illuminate and make meaningful the historical narrative of the Bible. That book, From Eden to Exile, has now been published in the United States by Greenleaf Press.

It is most refreshing to read an account of the history of Israel by a noted academic / archeologist which treats the biblical text respectfully! Not only that, but David Rohl cites an extensive collection of archaeological finds and artifacts which confirm the historical accuracy of the biblical account and attest to the historical reality of the Patriarchs. Rohl is the pioneer among a growing number of modern scholars who have challenged many of the traditional assumptions and chronologies of the ancient world. They are challenging the 19^th and early 20^th century theories and reconstructions of the history of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Those theories were formulated against a background of widespread skepticism (at times downright hostility) towards the biblical accounts. Rohl approaches the biblical texts with a quite different attitude. He begins by affording them the benefit of the doubt and taking them seriously. The result is a startling confirmation of the biblical record and a revision of the chronology of the ancient world.

Orthodox and conservative Christians will disagree with David Rohl’s retelling/reconstruction of the lives of Adam, Enoch, and Noah, but his version does have the admirable quality of treating all of them as historical figures. This stands in stark contrast to the past 150 years of liberal and skeptical scholarship which treats the biblical text as little more than a pious fraud. Because of the antiquity of these figures, and the scarcity of archeological finds and textual references, Rohl’s narrative here is little more than speculative conjecture – imaginative, but not really historical.

Rohl is on firmer ground, and has more to work with, when he describes the dispersion of the Mesopotamian culture and contacts (perhaps even a conquest?) with the Nile Valley. The unification of the Nile under the earliest pharaohs is murky territory, but Rohl’s speculative account ties more of the threads together than any other proposed narrative.

With Joseph, Rohl reaches territory where he is expert – Egypt. From here on the narrative is on surer footing, and the archeological evidence expands many-fold. The chapters on Joseph, Moses, and the Exodus are arguably the best in the book. Rohl paints a detailed picture of Egyptian culture and Pharaoh’s court. His account of the oppression of the Hebrew slaves draws on archeological finds made at the delta settlement of Avaris, first found and excavated in 1966. Rohl follows Josephus in crediting Moses as not just a “prince of Egypt,” but the successful commander of the Egyptian army which defeated and conquered Kush. Although Rohl opts for natural phenomena to account for the plagues of the Exodus, he produces compelling evidence from Egyptian sources that document and confirm the series of disasters which devastated Egypt.

The chapter on Joshua and the Conquest is a tour-de-force for Rohl. It provides him with an opportunity to review the history of archeology at Jericho and spell out in detail just where traditional scholars went wrong. Rohl shows how the New Chronology fits the facts much better and integrates the surviving documentary sources (including the Bible) with the archeological evidence.

In the chapter on Saul, Rohl presents startling evidence that the first king of Israel was a contemporary of the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaton. He quotes from the El Amarna letters to show that the Philistine cities of the coastal plain were sending frantic appeals to Pharaoh Akhenaton for help in putting down a rebellion by the nomadic herdsmen of the highlands under the leadership of their chief, Labaya, who Rohl identifies as Saul of the tribe of Benjamin. Even more intriguing, Rohl identifies a worshipper of the Hebrew God “El” at the court of Pharaoh Akhenaton. In the archives of Armarna, Rohl finds not only letters about Labaya, but also an actual letter from Labaya. The details of Labaya’s life and subsequent death in battle against a Philistine coalition on the slopes of Mt. Gilboa closely match the details of Saul’s life from the book of Samuel. They are a powerful confirmation of Rohl’s New Chronology.

Rohl continues to mine the Amarna letters for confirmation of the details of the reign of David. The letters record the actions of the two “sons of Labaya,” Mutbaal (Ishbaal) and Elhannan (David) as well as their generals Ayab (Joab)and Abner. Rohl cites the weakened Egyptian government and army under Akhenaton and Tutankhamun as the setting for David’s conquest of Jerusalem and expansion of the nation of Israel. David was expanding to fill the vacuum left by Egypt’s weakness during the later rulers of the 18^th dynasty.

Solomon’s marriage to an Egyptian princess, in Rohl’s reconstruction, thus cements an alliance with General Haremheb who had succeeded Tut and his uncle, Ay, as Pharaoh. Even more startling is Rohl’s assertion that in the 33^rd year of Solomon’s reign, it was troops from Israel who turned the tide at the battle of Kadesh, where the nineteen-year-old Ramesses II defeated Muwatali in 939 BC.

The division of Israel after Solomon’s death is aided by the intervention of the Pharaoh Shishak who marched on Jerusalem in the fifth year of the reign of Rehoboam.

The rest of Rohl’s narrative is straight-forward, as we enter the period of history when the biblical kings of Israel and Judah are mentioned in the text of neighboring nations and we have firm synchronicities established with Assyria and Nebuchadnezzar.

Rohl’s epilogue to this ambitious project is perhaps his best prose. In a brief, nine-page essay he states the problem posed by the dating of Solomon’s kingdom to the Iron Age and the inflation of the chronologies of the Egyptian Pharaohs caused by the assumptions of 19^th century historians. Current traditional archeological research can find no confirmation of the Jews’ sojourn in Egypt, or the Exodus, or the Conquest, or even of the flourishing of the nation of Israel under David and Solomon. And so the archeologists dismiss the Bible as historically untrustworthy. Rohl, with a thorough re-examination of the dating sequences of the ancient world revises the chronologies. He goes back and looks at the same places, but at different times and finds countless confirmations of the details of the biblical account. His history of both Egypt and Israel is “satisfyingly supported by the stratigraphic record and colourfully enhanced by the contemporary texts of Israel’s powerful neighbours. It provides a solid and ultimately believable historical foundation for the religious messages of the biblical text.”

The book is beautifully laid out and illustrated with maps derived from satellite photography as well as stunning photographs of ancient artifacts – kudos to David Rohl for the photography and Ditas Rohl for the design & layout. It is also brilliantly written. Rohl has a knack for taking the details of archeology and explaining sophisticated concepts and analyses in ways that a layman can easily understand. This is no small accomplishment.

Christians will not agree with Rohl’s speculations about the details behind the book of Genesis. Indeed, it seems to me that Rohl has weakened his case by inventing a narrative for the earliest time period where he has the least amount of evidence. But when he reaches Joseph and Egypt, all those who respect and appreciate the biblical text must acknowledge that Rohl has done great service in re-evaluating the evidence and synthesizing it in a new and more accurate structure that better explains the ancient world – and in the process confirms the historical accuracy of the Old Testament.

Thus, while there are many things in From Eden to Exile that I would take issue with, there is also much that I appreciate. And because I appreciate what I can only judge to be an honest, forthright, original work of scholarship, I am proud to make From Eden to Exile
available to the reading public (and the academic world) once again so that David Rohl’s contribution to the New Chronology will continue to find its audience. It will surely provoke, agitate, and force those who read it to re-think their ideas about the ancient world. It is my hope that it will also play a part in raising up a new generation of ancient historians who will continue to investigate the evidence, continue to search for archeological clues, and continue the ongoing discussion of the historical events recorded in the Old Testament.

From Eden to Exile is a paperback, 528 pages and is available directly from Greenleaf Press for $24.95. It is also available through Amazon.com.

Bookstores and other retailers may order copies directly from Greenleaf Press or through Ingram Book Group.

Rob Shearer, Publisher
Greenleaf Press

The book is divided into six sections. In chapter one, Sarah tells the story of her parents’ lives and their decision to move to Alaska when Sarah was two. She talks about her experiences growing up in a close-knit family on America’s northern frontier. Her dad was a high school science teacher and a coach – and a hunter and avid outdoorsman. The whole family grew up hiking, hunting, and fishing. Sarah played several sports in high school, but freely admits she was not as talented an athlete as her older brother or older sister. But she worked hard, and in her senior year she led her high school basketball team to the state championship. She talks about meeting and marrying Todd, whose background is equally fascinating. Todd has to have the toughest work ethic of anyone in his generation. If you’ve ever caught an episode of “Deadliest Catch” on the Discovery Channel, that’s Todd.

Chapter two describes her decision to enter politics and her terms on the Wasilla city council and then as the full-time mayor of Wasilla, finishing with an unsuccessful run for Lt. Governor and her service on the state regulatory board which oversaw oil and gas exploration. Chapter three recounts her run for Governor of Alaska and the challenges she faced as the first woman governor.

These three chapters make up the first half of the book. The second half of the book is a retelling of the 2008 election campaign, from the time she was selected as the nominee for Vice President through her decision to resign as governor of Alaska. Her inside view of the campaign doesn’t fully explain what went wrong, but there are plenty of clues. The VP’s campaign is run separately from the Presidential nominee’s with few joint appearances. But it’s clear that Sarah was a different sort of Maverick from Senator McCain – and that neither the Senator, nor his staff – especially his staff – ever understood her, or knew what an asset she could have been in rallying popular support for the ticket.

Palin has nothing negative to say about Senator McCain. What comes through in the book is her sincere admiration and respect for him. They had met before the campaign – McCain had made appearances at the National Governor’s Conferences and they seem to have liked each other. It is McCain’s staff who come off badly, especially campaign manager Steve Schmidt. He seems to have been a stubborn, profane bully who regarded Palin as an annoyance and a distraction from the beginning.

There are a couple of funny anecdotes (and a few shocking ones) from the campaign trail. Just before her debate with Joe Biden,

“. . . a campaign consultant whispered some last-minute advice on voice inflection. I hated to drop a bomb on her, but I’d been talking the same way for forty-four years and doubted our few moments alone would miraculously reform my style. Besides, I thought of all the money Tina Fey was making imitating me; I didn’t want to screw up her SNL thing by changing up on her midstream. I’m all about job security for the American worker.”

[heh]

That anecdote catches the flavor of the book. Palin is not afraid to poke a bit of fun at herself. She appreciates the absurdities of politics. She has a wry sense of humor.

As an autobiography, this is a great read. She gives us lots of stories about her childhood, her marriage, and her children. It’s very clear that she loves being a mom and loves her children. Her description of receiving the information that their youngest child, Trig, would be born with Down ’s syndrome is emotionally charged and very moving. In short, she’s a real authentic person. Reading about her as a daughter, a wife, and a mother – as well as her stint as an athlete, competing in the Miss Alaska Pageant, and working part-time as a sports journalist – makes it clear that she has an identity and a sense of who she is quite apart from her forays in the political realm.

I have no idea if she intends to run for another office. This is NOT a political manifesto, it is autobiography. We hear about politics as she experienced it growing up in Alaska. She admires Reagan and Thatcher and describes herself as a “commonsense conservative.” She’s in favor of not just slowing the growth of government, but in reducing its size. This hasn’t always been a radical position. It clearly resonates with a large segment of the American electorate. She’s not an ideologue, driven by a passionate commitment to a philosophical or political system. She’s a daughter, a wife, and a mom who got involved in local and then state politics, and knows a thing or two about what’s wrong and what could be done to improve things.

The genius of the American political system has always been the opportunity for the citizen-legislator to run and serve, and then return to private life. Professional politicians – people who have spent their whole lives in the business of politics and whose deepest drive is to acquire political power – do not have a particularly stellar track record. Will Palin run and serve again? We could do far worse.

- Rob Shearer, publisher

For younger students, we highly recommend the Mike Venezia series – with 47 separate short, quirky books on artists from Giotto to Warhol. For older students, there are several good survey books, but if you and your students are interested in going a bit deeper, we have some wonderful new resources to recommend.

The first is a very handy reference book, 10,000 Years of Art from Phaidon Press published in 2009. It is VERY reasonably priced, at $11.95 and includes color images of 500 works of art. Best of all, they are arranged in chronological order.

Here’s an example: Circa 800AD, photographs of a cast bronze figure from Sri Lanka and the Book of Kells (an illuminated Bible) from Ireland. Along the header of the pages are the dates and location of each work of art. The text underneath each image is a concise, well-written summary of why each work is important.

A few pages later, with dates of 1072 and 1075 are a silk painting by the Chinese artist Guo Xi, and a panel from the Bayeaux Tapestry (which tells the story of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England in 1066).

In 1303 we have Giotto’s masterpiece, Lamentation Over the Dead Christ (from the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua) and facing it the 1308 Sienna Altarpiece by Duccio.

And then, a more modern example, from 1930, Grant Wood’s American Gothic and on the facing page Salvador Dali’s Persistence of Memory from 1931.

There are 500 images overall, with many familiar and famous names (Rembrandt, Vermeer, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Chagall, Klee, Picasso, Van Gogh for example). Included are a large number of pieces of sculpture and more than a dozen illuminated pages from Europe, Arabia, India, & China.

The Phaidon book is extremely useful in giving teachers, parents, and students an overview of key pieces and getting them in sequence and context. If you want to study a particular work of art in detail, then you’ll want a reference book with a larger format, but as a guidebook/reference book, the Phaidon 10,000 Years of Art is a superb place to start. The book is a 543 page paperback and quite economical at $11.95 – available directly from Greenleaf Press.

For those who would like a more in-depth look at medieval architectural styles, I have run across a wonderful series of oversize hardbacks from Parkstone Press. While there are ten volumes in the full series, I would recommend in particular the volumes on Romanesque Art and on Gothic Art. For a study of the Middle Ages, these are the two broad important schools. The Parkstone volumes are gorgeous. They are oversize (9.75″x11″), and all pages are color on glossy paper. At 200 pages each, I would have expected them to cost $40 to $50 each but was quite pleasantly surprised to find that they are priced at a very economical $19.95.

Romanesque Art covers the architectural style of churches and monasteries built in the early Middle Ages (in Italy and in northern Europe) in the first 2/3 of the book and then devotes the final third to Romanesque sculpture and painting.

Gothic Art introduces the distinctive elements of Gothic art and architecture and then covers dozens of the great gothic cathedrals with beautiful color photography of both interiors and exteriors. Like the Romanesque book, it has a complete section on sculpture and painting as well.

Both of these volumes are excellent reference works. The color photography is beautifully done. I could sit and browse through them for hours. Your students will be captivated as well. If you’re studying the Middle Ages, these are two reference books you really should have.

Published in 2008, Romanesque Art is a hardback, 200 pages, $19.95 from Greenleaf Press.

Published in 2008, Gothic art is a hardback, 200 pages, also $19.95 from Greenleaf Press.

- Rob Shearer, Publisher

Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas goes the furthest of the three. Squanto is usually afforded a small but significant role in the traditional account. He arrives after the terrible dying-time of the first winter and moves in with the Pilgrim settlers and teaches them how to farm and fish. But Squanto’s story is itself a remarkable example of the providence of God. Squanto was kidnapped by European sailors in 1608, taken to Spain, and sold as a slave. But something remarkable happened at the slave auction. Squanto was purchased by a group of Spanish monks who devoted themselves to redeeming and freeing as many slaves as they could. The monks taught Squanto Spanish, and told him about God. They encouraged him to trust God. After five years in Spain, the monks arranged for Squanto to travel to London where they had made an arrangement with an English merchant who promised to help Squanto find his way back to Massachusetts. In 1618, Squanto, now aged 22 sailed back across the ocean to his home. When he reached the site of his village, it was deserted. A neighboring tribe told him the sad news that his entire village had perished in an outbreak of sickness. For two years, Squanto lived with the neighboring tribe. Then came word from one of the braves that a group of European families had arrived and built a small settlement where Squanto’s tribe used to live. Squanto went to visit them and greeted them in English. He told them his story of kidnapping and slavery, his redemption in Spain, and his return with the English fishing fleet. The Pilgrims told Squanto their story – leaving England seeking a place where they could worship God and serve Him. Squanto told the Pilgrims he would come and live with them and teach them how the Indians farmed and fished. Governor Bradford told Squanto that his story was like the story of Joseph – taken from his home and sold into slavery. And then Joseph was used by God to save a whole nation from starvation. The final third of the book tells (and shows) the story of Squanto helping the Pilgrims culminating in the celebration and Thanksgiving given to God by the Pilgrims and by Squanto in the fall of 1621.

Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving
is a hardback, 32 pages. It is available for $9.99 directly from Greenleaf Press.

Squanto’s Journey by Joseph Bruchac tells Squanto’s story in his own voice. Bruchac is a Native American and his text is clear and sparse – tinged with understandable sadness, but not bitterness. Squanto has endured kidnapping, slavery, long absence and the loss of his entire tribe to sickness. And yet he remains friendly towards the Pilgrims and seeks earnestly for peace. The illustrations are beautiful, with the bright orange, yellow, and brown shades of a New England fall.

Squanto’s Journey is a paperback, 32 pages. It is available for $6.00 directly from Greenleaf Press.

Pilgrim Cat by Carol Peacock is a delightful take on the Pilgrim story inspired by an encounter the author’s daughters had with a present-day cat at Plimoth Plantation, the living history museum in Massachusetts. There were eleven girls on the Mayflower, and there were cats. From these tidbits, Peacock weaves a story that certainly might have happened. If my daughters are any guide, the cat will certainly capture children’s attention and imagination and provide an opportunity to study the story of the Pilgrims with an intriguing twist. The cat, named “Pounce” is both a companion and a comfort through the “dying time” of the first winter. With a litter of kittens, Pounce is quite happy sampling tidbits under the table at the first Thanksgiving.

Pilgrim Cat is a paperback, 32 pages. It is available for $6.95 directly from Greenleaf Press.

Don’t forget our classic Thanksgiving titles: the Landmark Landing of the Pilgrims, N.C. Wyeth’s Pilgrims, and Samuel Eaton’s Day .

- Rob Shearer, Publisher

This large-format picture-book is divided into five major sections, with an introduction and an afterword. Part one is a section describing the founding and growth of Williamsburg as the capital of the colony of Virginia. Part two recounts “A New Spirit” and describes the opposition to British rule which grew in the 1760s and had its dramatic high point in Patrick Henry’s speech denouncing the Stamp Act in 1765. Part three is titled “Revolution” and begins with the attempt by the Royal Governor Dunmore to seize the powder reserves of the militia from its storehouse in Williamsburg. It concludes with the passage of the “Declaration of Rights” (written by George Mason) by the Virginia Convention in June of 1776.

Part four describes “The City at War.” Patrick Henry, the first popularly elected governor, replaced Lord Dunmore. The militia assembled and remained camped on the green lawns of Williamsburg, protecting the colonial government from attack by British troops. In 1779, Thomas Jefferson was elected governor and the capital was moved from Williamsburg to Richmond. Part five, “A Hard-Won Victory” describes the arrival of British troops under Benedict Arnold, who sailed by Williamsburg up the James River and sacked Richmond in January of 1781. Arnold retreated through Williamsburg and was then joined by General Cornwallis and his larger body of troops in June. By the end of the summer, Cornwallis had moved his army to Yorktown, about ten miles away from Williamsburg and was soon besieged there by American and French forces under Washington and Lafayette. In October, Cornwallis surrendered.

This volume, like the previous three from National Geographic, makes excellent use of historical settings and dedicated re-enactors who take great pains to get all of the details of their clothes and possessions correct. Colonial Williamsburg is a 300 acre park where the foundation has very carefully restored original buildings from the colonial era. There is something about these stunning color photographs which makes the events much more real. The faces of individuals in the crowd forces us to realize that these were ordinary real people – and that the iconic events of the American Revolution were felt by individuals from all stations of life.

There is a great deal of attention paid in the text and photographs to the ways in which colonial life and the events of the Revolution were experienced differently by the slave community in colonial Virginia. Rightfully so. Without lapsing in a predictable political correctness, there is a refreshing honesty in reporting the reality of the institution of slavery. The tension between the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Declaration of Rights is also noted.

Along with the other titles in this series, National Geographic is doing a fantastic job of making early American history accessible to younger readers. The publisher lists the target age group for this book as “8-12.” The text seems to me to be pitched a little bit older. I’d estimate more like 10-15, but the pictures will certainly grab the attention of younger readers. The content is far more engaging than the accounts in the standard textbooks. I’d certainly recommend this for students up through grades 8 or 9.

1776: A New Look at Revolutionary Williamsburg is a hardback, 48 pages. It is available for $17.95 directly from Greenleaf Press by clicking on any of the links in this review.

- Rob Shearer, Publisher

This is the latest title in the excellent series of titles from Chicago Review Press which also includes George Washington for Kids, The American Revolution for Kids, and Abraham Lincoln for Kids.

The subtitle on this volume follows the same formula as the others, “His Life and Ideas with 21 Activities.”

The book is, first of all, an excellent illustrated biography of Franklin – whose life is perhaps the most remarkable of all the founding fathers. Part 1 – “As a Young Genius” provides us with Franklin’s family history. His father was a Puritan, who left England in 1683 and migrated to the capital of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Boston. Benjamin was born in 1706, the 12^th of fourteen children. Ben grew up in colonial Boston. He was a bookish lad, but didn’t much like school. At ten he apprenticed to his father as a soap and candle-maker. This he apparently hated even more than school. At twelve, his father decided to apprentice Ben to one of his older half-brothers, who was a printer. Ben liked work in the print shop, but hated working for his brother. In 1723, at the age of seventeen, Ben slipped away from Boston without a word to his family or his parents. There are five activities for this section: Grow Crystal Candy; Shoot a Game of Marbles; Pour a Bar of Soap; Dip Candles; Hasty Pudding.

Part 2 – “A Young Man of Promising Parts” follows Ben’s move from Boston to New York and then to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia he found work in a printer’s shop, but was ambitious to establish his own business. In 1724, he sailed for London with a friend, thinking he had the backing of the Royal Governor of Pennsylvania. Sadly, the Governor had misled Ben with a promise of a letter of credit. The truth was, the Governor had no credit to lend. Ben went to work for a printer in London. In two years he had saved enough to return to Philadelphia. Back in Philadelphia, two more years of hard work finally enabled Ben to start his own business. In 1729, he published the first issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette. Most of the articles were written by Ben. There are three activities for his section: Create Your Own Paper; Make a Leather Apron; Start a Junto.

Part 3 – “Any Opportunity to Serve” details the twenty years in Franklin’s life when he worked as a printer, and author, and then, towards the end as a natural scientist and inventor. The short version is that the print shop prospered and Franklin got rich. His newspaper sold well, and when he added an annual Almanac, it proved very popular and quite profitable. By 1750, Franklin had invested in other print shops in New York and New Jersey, he was perhaps the largest manufacturer of paper in the British Empire, and he had invested wisely and profitably in real estate. During the 1740s he became the official printer of the colonial government of Pennsylvania. He founded the American Philosophical Society. He was appointed postmaster. He organized the Militia Association and the Union Fire Company. He was also attracted to the preaching of George Whitefield and intrigued by the revival then sweeping the colonies known as the “Great Awakening.” He befriended Whitefield and became his publisher, though he never was personally converted to Christianity. By the end of the decade, at the age of 45, he decided to retire from his business ventures and devote himself to further education, exploration of the natural world, and writing. His investigations and publications on electricity made him famous in Europe as well as the colonies, and he was awarded honorary degrees by both Yale and Harvard. There are four activities for this section: Design and Print an Almanac Cover; Create Charged Cereal; Roll that Can; Fly a Kite.

Part 4 – “A Firm Loyalty to the Crown” In the 1750s, Franklin wrote and published dozens of essays, most of them devoted to promoting the development of the American Colonies. He predicted the population would double every twenty years, and that there were many fortunes to be made. He was appointed one of two joint deputy postmasters for all the North American colonies – a task he undertook with energy and enthusiasm. During the French and Indian War, he again organized the colonial militia and was elected Colonel of a 1,000-man regiment. Ben and his eldest son, William, traveled to the frontier and supervised the construction of forts. In 1757, the Pennsylvania legislature sent him to London to negotiate with the Penn family over amendments to the colonial charter. Franklin found himself a celebrity in London – well known from his writings and his experiments with electricity. In 1761, Franklin attended the coronation of George III. After five years in London, Ben returned home to Philadelphia. He stayed only a year, and then was sent back to London a second time to request the King and Parliament end the rule of Pennsylvania by the Penn family. He was to spend the next ten years in London, representing not only Pennsylvania, but eventually being named agent for New Jersey, Georgia, and Massachusetts. He was in London when Parliament passed the Stamp Act, and also when, after violent opposition, they repealed it the next year. He stayed in London through the rest of the decade, and then on into the 1770s. When Boston radicals dumped tea into the harbor rather than pay a tax imposed by Parliament, Franklin was summoned to appear before King George’s privy council and listened for more than an hour while he and the colonists were denounced and insulted. He worked with William Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, to introduce a measure whereby Parliament would voluntarily renounce any authority to impose a tax on the colonies’ internal trade. Pitt’s proposal was rejected. Shortly thereafter, Ben left London and returned to Philadelphia – the city he had left eleven years before. There are two activities for this section: Dig into Your Family Tree; Play a Glass Armonica.

Part 5 – “Snatching the Scepter from Tyrants” When Franklin arrived in Philadelphia, he learned that while he’d been at sea between England and America there had been a battle between the British Regulars occupying Boston and the Massachusetts Militia at Lexington and Concord. A day after his arrival, Franklin was elected as a delegate from Virginia to the Second Continental Congress, which was already meeting in Philadelphia. The next spring, he was appointed to the committee to draft a Declaration of Independence. In the fall, he was commissioned by the Congress to travel to Paris and seek an alliance with the French. In Paris, Franklin found he was a much a celebrity as he had been in London a decade earlier. In 1778, he met Voltaire who proclaimed himself one of Franklin’s admirers. Franklin not only worked towards a formal, open alliance with the French, he also worked quietly on many of the practical needs of the colonial government and the continental army. After Washington forced the surrender of Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown in 1781, Franklin (along with Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens) helped to negotiate the treaty with Great Britain which recognized the independence of the colonies. There are three activities for this section: Make Fancy Shoe Buckles; Cook a French Feast; Learn French Words and Phrases.

Part 6 “Something Fit to end With” Ben stayed on in Paris until 1785, when he was succeeded as the United States Ambassador to France by Thomas Jefferson. His sojourn in Europe this time had lasted for nine years. In May of 1787, Pennsylvania sent Franklin as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. At the age of 81, he was the oldest delegate. It was Franklin who nominated George Washington as the presiding officer over the convention. It was Franklin who was instrumental in crafting the compromise between large states and small states that was solved by creating both a Senate and a House of Representatives. After the ratification of the Constitution, Franklin’s last cause was the abolition of slavery. He was already president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. He urged the new Congress of the United States to end slavery, but his appeals were ignored. In April of 1790, at the age of 84, Benjamin Franklin died surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Thus ended a remarkable life which began as a younger son of an English Puritan emigrant to Boston and included a decade of service in London and a decade in Paris. There are four activities for this section: Design a Turkey Seal for the United States; Make a Barometer; Make a Walking Stick for Your Gout; Cast Franklin’s Rising Sun.

Aside from being an excellent biography of Franklin, this book (like all of the Chicago Review Press titles in this series) is unique in its incorporation of practical, hands-on activities for kids. The publisher indicates the text is written for students in grades 3 through 6, and that’s certainly the age range that most of the activities will appeal to – but I suspect that even junior high and high school students will find the biography of Franklin an excellent introduction to his impressive and varied accomplishments.

Ben Franklin: American Genius is a paperback, 128 pages. It is available for $16.95 directly from Greenleaf Press by clicking on any of the links in this review.

- Rob Shearer, Publisher

Other books from Chicago Review Press in this series: