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The Society for Useful Knowledge : how Benjamin Franklin and friends brought the Enlightenment to America by Jonathan Lyons is a history book available to read on EtoBox.

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Benjamin Franklin and his contemporaries brought the Enlightenment to America--an intellectual revolution that laid the foundation for the political one that followed. With the "first Drudgery" of settling the American colonies now well and truly past, Franklin announced in 1743, it was high time that the colonists set about improving the lot of humankind through collaborative inquiry. From Franklin's idea emerged the American Philosophical Society, an association hosted in Philadelphia and dedicated to the harnessing of man's intellectual and creative powers for the common good. The animus behind the Society was and is a disarmingly simple one-that the value of knowledge is directly proportional to its utility. This straightforward idea has left a profound mark on American society and culture and on the very idea of America itself-and through America, on the world as a whole.From celebrated historian of knowledge, Jonathan Lyons comes The Society for Useful Knowledge, telling the story of America's coming-of-age through its historic love affair with practical invention, applied science, and self-reliance. Offering fresh, original portraits of figures like Thomas Jefferson, Benjami

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Author

Jonathan Lyons

Publisher

Bloomsbury Press

Published

2013

Language

EN

ISBN

9781608195534

Category

history

Subjects

Fiction, Memoir, Science

Rating

3.5 / 5 (99 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14