Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership

"Larson's elegantly written dual
biography reveals that the partnership of Franklin and Washington was
indispensable to the success of the Revolution." —Gordon S. Wood 

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
comes a masterful, first-of-its-kind dual biography of Benjamin Franklin and
George Washington, illuminating their partnership's enduring importance. 

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • One of Washington Post's "10 Books to Read in February" • One of USA Today’s “Must-Read
Books" of Winter 2020  •  One of Publishers Weekly's
"Top Ten" Spring 2020 Memoirs/Biographies

Theirs was a
three-decade-long bond that, more than any other pairing, would forge the
United States. Vastly different men, Benjamin Franklin—an abolitionist
freethinker from the urban north—and George Washington—a slavehold­ing general
from the agrarian south—were the indispensable authors of American independence
and the two key partners in the attempt to craft a more perfect union at the
Constitutional Convention, held in Franklin’s Philadelphia and presided over by
Washington. And yet their teamwork has been little remarked upon in the
centuries since.

Illuminating Franklin and Washington’s
relationship with striking new detail and energy, Pulitzer Prize–winning
historian Edward J. Larson shows that theirs was truly an intimate working
friendship that amplified the talents of each for collective advancement
of the American project.

After long sup­porting British rule, both Franklin and Washington became key early proponents of inde­pendence. Their friendship gained historical significance during the
American Revolution, when Franklin led America’s diplomatic mission in
Europe (securing money and an alliance with France) and Washington commanded
the Continental Army. Victory required both of these efforts to succeed, and
success, in turn, required their mutual coordination and cooperation. In the
1780s, the two sought to strengthen the union, leading to the framing and
ratification of the Constitution, the founding document that bears their stamp.

Franklin and Washington—the two most revered
figures in the early republic—staked their lives and fortunes on the
American experiment in liberty and were committed to its preservation. Today
the United States is the world’s great super­power, and yet we also wrestle
with the government Franklin and Washington created more than two centuries
ago—the power of the executive branch, the principle of checks and balances,
the electoral college—as well as the wounds of their compromise over
slavery. Now, as the founding institutions appear under new stress, it is time
to understand their origins through the fresh lens of Larson’s Franklin
& Washington, a major addition to the literature of the
founding era.