PORTABLE PROFESSOR™ is a series of exciting and informative lectures recorded by some of today's most renowned university and college professors. Each course introduces listeners to fascinating, and sometimes startling, insights into the intellectual forces that shape our understanding of the world. Each package includes 14 riveting lectures presented by notable professors as well as a book-length course guide.

As the individual perhaps most widely respected by the generation that founded the United States, Benjamin Franklin can fairly be described as the "Founding Godfather" of America. A gifted writer, businessman, diplomat, political mover, scientist, and inventor—not to mention a famous wit and incorrigible womanizer—Franklin towers among historical figures, but his warm humanism and intelligence cast his amazing life into undeniably human relief. In this outstanding series of lectures, award-winning author H.W. Brands explores the impact of the life and remarkable achievements of this American original.

COURSE LECTURES

Out of Boston: 1706-1723Among Friends: 1723-1726Poor Richard: 1726-1733The Art of Virtue: 1728-1737Practical Citizenship: 1739-1747Stealing Lightning From the Heavens: 1748-1752Join or Die: 1752-1757A Personal Stamp Act Crisis: 1757-1765The Cockpit: 1765-1774The Most Dangerous Man in America: 1774-1776Paris by Storm: 1776-1778To Be Seventy Again: 1778-1783Eldest Statesman: 1783-1787"In Peach" with Them All: 1787-1790
An expert chronicler of the American experience, H.W. Brands is Distinguished Professor of History at Texas A&M University. Among other topics, he has written books about the California gold rush, America in the 1890s, President Woodrow Wilson, and the Cold War. His biographies of Teddy Roosevelt, T.R.: The Last Romantic, and Benjamin Franklin, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), both won widespread critical acclaim and were best-sellers.