Foreign Policy Research Institute A Nation Must Think Before it Acts William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and the American Founding: The Philadelphia Factor
William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and the American Founding: The Philadelphia Factor

William Penn, Benjamin Franklin, and the American Founding: The Philadelphia Factor

  • Walter A. McDougall
  • December 20, 2013
  • Center for the Study of America and the West
  • Madeleine and W.W. Keen Butcher History Institute

. . . Given all these contingencies it would appear that the birth of a United States of America was a fluke. And yet the historical narrative also suggests that what made that glorious fluke possible was the location, culture, and people of Philadelphia. If Washington was the indispensable man, then Philadelphia was the indispensable city that made possible the Declaration of Independence, victory in the Revolutionary War, and the triumph of the Constitution. . . .

 

This E-Book is based on a presentation to an FPRI History Institute on The Creation of Liberal Democracy: Did it Happen in Philadelphia by Accident? (held September 28-29, 2013). 

 

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