Benjamin Franklin and the Politics of Improvement

"Houston's placement of Franklin in the milieu of the social and political theorists with whom he circulated is unmatched."—Carla Mulford, Pennsylvania State University

~Carla Mulford

“An important, well-written, and consistently interesting interpretation of Franklin.”—J. A. Leo Lemay, University of Delaware

~J. A. Leo Lemay

“I can think of no work that comes close to giving such a rich account of this polymath, and none that opens such politically provocative vantage points from Franklin’s work onto eighteenth-century America, commercial society, the history of demography, and more.”—Don Herzog, University of Michigan

~Don Herzog

"In this wonderfully creative study, Alan Houston recaptures the extraordinary complexity of Franklin's thought. The book not only is a pleasure to read, but also provides a compelling new methodology for analyzing political ideas in a commercial society."—T.H. Breen, author of The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence

~T.H. Breen

“Houston succeeds admirably in contextualizing and skillfully presenting the politics and political economy informing Franklin’s understanding of colonial America’s increasingly independent strength within the larger British empire. It is essential reading for the study of Franklin’s political thought.”—Shannon Stimson, University of California-Berkeley

~Shannon Stimson

“A dazzlingly written and deliciously detailed portrait of Franklin’s unique place in the politics and culture of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world.”—Stephen Holmes, New York University School of Law

~Stephen Holmes