A Dangerous Engine: Benjamin Franklin, from Scientist to Diplomat

At the time of his famous kite experiment, Benjamin Franklin was unaware that his theories about electricity had already made him a celebrity all over Europe, especially in France, where fashionable circles loved to discuss scientific discovery. Admired by the French court and beloved by French citizens, Franklin effectively became America’s first foreign diplomat, later helping to enlist France’s military and financial support for the American Revolution. A father of the revolution and a
signer of the Constitution, Franklin was a lightning rod in political circles – “a dangerous Engine,” according to a critic. And although he devoted the last twenty-five years of his life to affairs of state, his first love was always science. Handsome pen-and-ink drawings highlight moments in this revolutionary thinker’s life. From the author and illustrator of The Longitude Prize, a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book and winner of the Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, comes another story of adventure and invention, of one man’s curiosity and the extraordinary rewards of his discoveries, just in time to celebrate the 300th anniversary of his birth (January 17, 1706).