Reviews for Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, Vol. 1

The average rating for Personal Memoirs of P. H. Sheridan, Vol. 1 based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-08-25 00:00:00 John Frost "...there will be sleeping enough in the grave...." - Benjamin Franklin Even in death, I can't imagine Franklin resting. There is always just too much to do, too many questions to ask, too many books to read, too much to explore. My brother recommended this book to me about 30 years ago. I'm not sure why I never read it until now. Part of it must be the feeling that Benjamin Franklin would always just be there. He wasn't going anywhere. He seems to permeate so much of what it means to be an American and is an essential part our shared historical map. His autobiography, which is divided into two parts, ends in 1757. So all of the Revolutionary War Franklin and Continental Congress Franklin is obviously missing. These are his early years. It is a portrait of a polymath as a young man. It shows his curiosity, his work ethic, his creativity, his risk-taking, his bridge-building. All the things that would later be used as part of the myth-making around Franklin. After reading this autobiography, I kinda agree with Christopher Hitchen's take about the role of Benjamin Franklin as the Socrates of his day: "Franklin was also the main man. He was drafted onto the committee that drew up the Declaration (and may well have been the one who imposed the ringing term "self-evident," as against the more pompous "sacred and undeniable" in its crucial opening stave.) When George Washington's horse bore him into Philadelphia for the grueling meeting that would eventually evolve the United States Constitution, it was at Franklin's front door that the president necessarily made his first stop.... - The thing about reading Franklin is you are never quite sure when he is pulling one over on the reader. His humor was dry and sharp. He could adapt the language of his foes and flail them with it. He was happy to guide and get things done, rather than glory and stay stationary. He was an American original and we are all better for his curiosity, his humor, his readiness to take risks, his ability to learn and adapt. When people talk about standing on the backs of giants, I imagine we all have climbed a bit on the back of Franklin.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-04-30 00:00:00 Kaye Wade This is a curious little book. As an autobiography it suffers from the fact that it leaves out nearly all of the most interesting parts of Franklin's life. This is a bit like reading an autobiography of John Lennon that ends a few years before he meets Paul McCartney. I'm not saying there is no interest in what is here, but any sort of version of such a man's life that ends well short of the American Revolution is more than a little heart breaking. There are very amusing parts of this - particularly around how he sought to improve himself both morally, through a thirteen step plan, and as a writer. In fact, as 'advice to a young writer' this book offers some wonderful advice. He would read what he considered to be well written articles and then, a day or two later, would try to re-compose them, as accurately as possible, from memory. Then he would go back to the original article and compare his effort with that. As he persisted with this strategy he would sometimes find he had improved on the original, making the ordering of the points raised more logical or finding a particularly apt phrase that made the point in a way better than had been done in the original. This is such good advice. It is remarkably hard for us to take the reader into consideration when we write - and this method forces us to do exactly that. We think we know what we mean when we write something, but all too often we are only sure of our meaning at the moment we write it, and sometimes not even then. My favourite metaphor is that a writer must 'take the reader in hand'. And that is the level of care that is called for in our writing. His advice on arguing and avoiding words that imply too much certainty in our views is also well worth heeding. It is interesting to read someone so steeped in the Enlightenment. To read a humanist who, as much as anything else, was keen to see a general improvement in humanity - whether through more universal access to learning (he set up the first subscription library and was instrumental in forming the first university in Pennsylvania) or in finding ways to ensure the streets are kept clean and well lit. In a world so much defined by Galbraith's memorable phrase about our being prepared to accept personal affluence set amidst public squalor, we can look back in wonder at the civic conscious people of the past. There is something 'homespun' in the wisdom contained here, but the writing is always beautifully clear and this book does make you wish he had dedicated more time to telling more of his life - even the parts on his experiments with electricity are skimmed over in ways that leave you wishing for much, much more.