“I have sometimes almost wished it had been my destiny to have been born two or three centuries hence.” —Ben Franklin

Was Benjamin Franklin an indispensable public servant or a cunning chameleon? A hard-headed entrepreneur or an opportunistic privateer? A devoted family man or a notorious womanizer? A scientist and inventor or a hoaxer and self promoter? A believer or a heretic? The first civilized American or the most dangerous man in America? Listen to this book and you decide!

In The Greatest American, Dr. Mark Skousen—“America’s Economist” and a direct descendant of the old man—reveals many new features and little-known facts about Ben Franklin, such as:

• Why Franklin was a free trader: "No nation was ever ruined by trade."

• The surprising benefits of inflation to pay for the American Revolution

• How the War of Independence transformed him from a religious heretic to a believing theist

• Why he hated party politics

• How he changed his mind about slavery and became a devote abolitionist

• The truth about his love affairs with women. Did he really abandon his wife Deborah, or did she abandon him?

• Why he never applied for any patents for his famous inventions

• Why George Washington loved Franklin and John Adams despised him

• Why he turned against his beloved son, William, and never forgave him

• His preference for private welfare and charities rather than state-run social programs and welfare

Benjamin Franklin was the oldest of the founding fathers—he was indeed a whole generation ahead of George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson—and yet he was the most forward-looking of the group and the most modern of the founders. The Greatest American shows just how much of an impact Benjamin Franklin had on American politics and daily life.