Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet: The Favorite Founder’s Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity - Couverture rigide

Meyer, Michael

 
9781328568892: Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet: The Favorite Founder’s Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity
Couverture rigide
ISBN 10 : 132856889X ISBN 13 : 9781328568892
Editeur : Mariner Books, 2022

Synopsis

The incredible story of Benjamin Franklin’s parting gift to the working-class people of Boston and Philadelphia—a deathbed wager that captures the Founder’s American Dream and his lessons for our current, conflicted age.

Benjamin Franklin was not a gambling man. But at the end of his illustrious life, the Founder allowed himself a final wager on the survival of the United States: a gift of two thousand pounds to Boston and Philadelphia, to be lent out to tradesmen over the next two centuries to jump-start their careers. Each loan would be repaid with interest over ten years. If all went according to Franklin’s inventive scheme, the accrued final payout in 1991 would be a windfall. 

In Benjamin Franklin’s Last Bet, Michael Meyer traces the evolution of these twin funds as they age alongside America itself, bankrolling woodworkers and silversmiths, trade schools and space races. Over time, Franklin’s wager was misused, neglected, and contested—but never wholly extinguished. With charm and inquisitive flair, Meyer shows how Franklin’s stake in the “leather-apron” class remains in play to this day, and offers an inspiring blueprint for prosperity in our modern era of growing wealth disparity and social divisions.

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À propos de l'auteur

MICHAEL MEYER is the author of three critically acclaimed books, as well as articles in the New York Times and other outlets. A Fulbright scholar, Guggenheim, NEH, Cullman Center and MacDowell fellow, and the recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, Meyer is a Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches nonfiction writing. He lives in Pittsburgh.

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Éditeur
Mariner Books
Date d'édition
2022
Langue
anglais
ISBN 10 
132856889X
ISBN 13 
9781328568892
Reliure
Relié
Nombre de pages
368
Coordonnées du fabricant
non disponible
Personne responsable
HarperCollins Publishers Ireland
enquiries@harpercollins.ie

Mayor Street Upper 39/40
Dublin
D01 C9W8
Irlande

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780063268562: Benjamin Franklin's Last Bet: The Favorite Founder’s Divisive Death, Enduring Afterlife, and Blueprint for American Prosperity – A Gift to the Working Class: Loans, Wealth, and the Modern Era

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0063268566 ISBN 13 :  9780063268562
Editeur : Mariner Books, 2023
Couverture souple