Benjamin Franklin

A slaveholder who was its evil late in the game. A scientist of Nobel-quality and a great inventor who allowed his inventions to benefit the public while not milking them for profit. A committed Briton who essentially lost his son because Franklin started to see himself as an American. Yet, he 'saves' that same sons' out-of-wedlock child. A man so in tune with others but whom effectively abandoned his wife. Probably the best diplomat and possibly the best politician to ever serve our nation.

Ken Burns has again brought to light the subject's complexity, enlightening us on many facets of his life that our schools history abbreviated, to our school childrens' detriment.

OK, his link to the FreeMasons wasn't mentioned. Maybe Ken Burns will do a series on that.

Out of all American political figures who were not presidents, Benjamin Franklin is probably the one with the most interesting life. Similarly to Leonardo da Vinci, he was a kind of Renaissance Man who possessed incredible skill in many different subjects and endeavors. During his lifetime, he was an inventor, a scientist, a postmaster, a father, an ambassador to France and the UK, a patriot, and at the time the most famous American on Earth. Without him, the US might not even exist today. This rather short Ken Burns series goes over Franklin's life in the intriguing and smartly written fashion we've come to expect of his documentaries. While historical subjects outside of the World Wars or late 1800s are typically beyond my interest, Burns is somehow always able to make essentially any time period fun to learn about. As per usual, we get a good narrator in the form of Peter Coyote (who also narrated Burns' masterpiece on Vietnam), a musical score that wouldn't sound out of place if it were composed in the 18th century, and various historians weighing in when it comes to Franklin's decisions and activities. While it is quite hard to go over every important detail of his life since the series presents a lot of them, some highlights include how he came up with an instrument using an array of glass bowls to produce sound with friction called a glass harmonica. Beethoven and Mozart composed pieces for it. His son, William Franklin, was royal governor of New Jersey during colonial times and wanted to see the american colonies remain friendly with England. A surprisingly large portion of Ben's life was dedicated to trying to uphold a good relationship between england and its possessions in north america, something that would sadly end in failure as Franklin eventually came to understand there was no future for him or anyone like him in england. Although he thought of himself as a Brit for much of his life, he would ultimately become an american during the Revolutionary War, and broke off relations with his son as he was unwilling to change his loyalist stance. As most already know, Franklin was also an accomplished scientist and arguably knew more about electricity than anyone else in the world at the time. His famous experiment involving a kite attracted praise from such legends as John Locke. Franklin was present in france when he witnessed the first piloted ascent by humans in history, when the Montgolfier brothers tested a hot air balloon. As for the documentary itself and how it's presented, I found it to be still really good, but not as good as many of Burns' other efforts. Don't get me wrong, there are still a wealth of beautiful outdoor shots of historical places Franklin was present in (one of which I live very close to), and mentions of Franklin's dislike of and rivalry with John Adams, but the problems arise when you notice how patronizing many of the historians are. Of course, it's basically impossible to discuss the time period Franklin lived in without bringing up slavery, and the documentary certainly has no shortage of mentioning it. Franklin did own slaves, but people now are going to get very hung up on this, acting like events from almost 300 years ago should conform to their sweet and innocent view of the current world. History is history, and it doesn't care about how you might feel about something immoral. If people can't learn to accept what's already happened, they will mentally destroy themselves since you can't alter the past. In all, I found this series to be a good overview of Franklin and what made him such a crucial figure in american history, even if the leftist overtone surrounding it was shoved in my face a little too much. Come to think of it, every single Burns documentary I've watched so far suffers from this to at least some degree, but this is the most up front it's ever been.

Your Civil War series years ago was great. Your narrators who of black back along with critical race theory (CRT) today is trying to diminish Benjamin Franklin. These people should embrace his ideas that resulted in ridding slavery. But he did not go far enough.

Worse yet there were Irish and Slavic slaves during the times of the colonies but black person mentioned that either.

When doing narrations as much as I understand the black narrators point of view they fail in understanding another's point of view and you left no one to counter these views with positive views.

I was in Manchester England in 2012 at a contractors facility and I got a full taste of how English think Irish and Scots are sub human. They forgot with my Irish last name and American accent that I am 6 generations Irish from the time of the potato famine. Maybe your black narrators should do their research in lieu of promoting CRT.

I had always known Benjamin Franklin was one of the U. S.'s Founding Fathers -- and also that he discovered electricity - but his real life had been quite vague during my 60-plus years. In my high school days (back in the 70s) he was just an important early American. I wish such historical viewing was available back then.

Therefore I believe understanding Franklin's productivity and mental capacity, as well as his hardships and how he helped form the United States of America, should be required of every American high school student lest the country continue in its modern decay.

And once again, thank you Ken Burns for rejuvenating interest and adding knowledge to our American history.

Ken Burns is THA MAN! We're so down with Burns documentaries in our house that we actually have a harder time paying attention to non-Burns history documentaries. The only reason I rated this a 9 instead of 10 is because I think some of his others rank a little higher within his own portfolio of work. (His Civil War is an exalted masterpiece among documentaries and his Roosevelt's piece is probably our household fave).

If you love Franklin though, this is the best way to absorb his story. Burns keeps you captivated with a cast of historians who are usually the top experts in their field who have written books of their own on the subject. He also is known for getting famous actors to portray the voices. Paul Giamatti reprises his role as John Adams in this, which is cool. The enormous compilation of images are expertly strung together to portray the story of Franklin's life. My 10-yr old sat and watched this whole thing with us.