Review by Booklist Review
While the colonies were securing political separation from England, a group of Americans were instrumental in establishing American intellectual and scientific freedom from European tradition and in developing a vibrant and distinctly practical culture for the new nation. The leading proponents of this independence were the remarkable Benjamin Franklin and his associates (the Junto), including botanist John Bartram, astronomer David Rittenhouse, physician Benjamin Rush, and industrial visionary Tench Coxe. In this highly readable account of the societies (the title one, later the American Philosophical Society, being the prototype), academies, mechanics' associations, and other social institutions the group engendered that believed science and experimentation to be collective endeavors, Lyons illuminates a formative period in American cultural history, the theme being that the value of learning and knowledge . . . is directly proportional to its practical import and utility. While this emphasis originated with early colonists' need to adapt to an unfamiliar environment, Lyons' focus on Franklin and Quaker Philadelphia is apt, though he rightly credits an English precedent with the Royal Society. The book will be compared to Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club (2001), which covered a comparably germinal group a century later.--Levine, Mark Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Benjamin Franklin famously counseled that knowledge is valuable in direct proportion to its utility. Unfortunately, Lyons's (The House of Wisdom) repetitive cultural history of a shopworn subject will be of little use to anyone at all familiar with the topic. Still, like Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, his approach is an engaging one-by exploring ideas through the people who thought them, he adds substance to an otherwise airy discussion. Franklin, along with Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, botanist John Bartram, and physician Benjamin Rush, all sought to foster utilitarian knowledge in hopes of enhancing the economic, political, and social character of colonial America. To that end, Franklin launched a kind of proto-think tank in 1727 that "combined the conviviality of a private drinking club with the advantages of a mutual-aid society, the moral and intellectual self-improvement of a discussion circle, and the altruism of a civic association." Lyons's obvious and unsurprising conclusion is that these prescient thinkers secured the values of the "mechanic, artisan, engineer, and inventor in American society." Agent: Will Lippincott, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Lyons (Islam Through Western Eyes) here directs his attention to 18th-century America. His particular focus is Benjamin Franklin's role in developing the concept of "useful knowledge," with ideas judged by how well they apply to daily life. Lyons contends that this viewpoint originated in Europe, where knowledge had become moribund, lacking the vigor of American thinking. (He occasionally overstates the differences between American and European thought.) According to observers on both continents, the challenges of establishing a new society required useful skills that best served an enlightened people. Franklin exemplified and encouraged progress in many practical fields, ranging from science (e.g., his experiments with electricity) to political theory (e.g., his early advocacy of colonial union). His interests, from astronomy to education, in all cases related to the situations of everyday life. Lyons places Franklin at the heart of a transcontinental debate over the purpose of intellectual life, but readers may wish that he had directed more attention to the implications of this practical mode of thinking. Did the American emphasis on useful knowledge devolve into something akin to anti-intellectualism as it was more widely disseminated among the populace in later decades? VERDICT Those concerns aside, Lyons has raised important questions about the origins of "useful knowledge" in America that will have wide appeal. Recommended.-Charles K. Piehl, Minnesota State Univ., Mankato (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The author of The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization (2009) returns with an examination of transformative events in American cultural history--and of that great transformer himself, Benjamin Franklin. Former Reuters foreign correspondent Lyons has two principal and intertwined stories to tell: the career of Franklin and the rise of the useful and the practical in American education and society. He notes the insecurity colonial American intellectuals felt, the difficulty of scholarly collaboration (communication was both slow and unreliable) and the disdain that many European scientists and scholars showed for their rustic counterparts in the New World. The author describes the early career of Franklin and shows how he contributed to the view of practical/useful knowledge in Philadelphia--and how that notion spread, slowly, to the other colonies and (later) states. Franklin's successful experiments with electricity impressed the English, whose Royal Society gave him an award in 1753, and his influence soared, both in America and abroad. In Philadelphia, Franklin sought to create a university that would de-emphasize the traditional curriculum of Greek and Latin and emphasize the practical. He found stiff opposition from conservatives and grumbled about it the rest of his life. Lyons introduces us to some other notables from the era, including David Rittenhouse (famed, among other things, for his improvement of the orrery) and Thomas Paine, who in 1787 joined Franklin, Rittenhouse, Benjamin Rush and others in the Society for Political Inquiries. The author ends with a look at how we continue to revere those who make substantial practical contributions to American life--e.g., the Wright brothers, Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs. Lyons does not devote much space to the battle between the liberal and practical arts, which continues to rage in schools and colleges. Clear, focused snapshots of a movement and its celebrated leader.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
