When members of this year's freshman class read Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography as part of the Penn Reading Project, they really only got half the story.
Franklin's account abruptly ends in 1757 when Franklin was 51, leaving out the last 33 eventful years of his life.
In celebration of Franklin's 300th birthday, Mark Skousen, Franklin's eighth-generation descendant, has published The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin, picking up where Franklin left off.
Last night, he presented the book to an audience of about a dozen at the Penn Bookstore.
With the help of his wife, JoAnn, Skousen used Franklin's numerous letters, journal entries and essays -- complied in 37 volumes at Yale University -- to complete the book.
He added that he was uncertain whether it could be done since it was such a large project. He read the Autobiography- -- originally written for Franklin's descendants -- as a young man and was "impressed with his genius and his ability to become financially independent."
Skousen is a professional economist and business professor at Columbia University who has authored 17 books on finance and economics.
He said that he feels that Franklin would be appalled at today's consumer society and at the national debt.
Skousen said he likes to think that he followed in Franklin's footsteps, writing an investment newsletter, becoming financially independent and expanding beyond the typical business perspective.
"Franklin was always thinking about how he could make life better for other people both in business and civic affairs," Skousen said.
The Compleated Autobiography includes significant details of Franklin's life such as his role as a colonial representative to England, his signing of the Declaration of Independence and his role as ambassador to France.
According to Skousen, readers may view Franklin as someone they could "sit and shoot the bull with," but on the other hand, as a brilliant leader who co-founded the nation along with George Washington.
College sophomore Eric Schwartz felt the event might have praised Penn's founder too much, adding that "there are definitely a lot of negative sides to Franklin that may not come through in this interpretation."
Christine Hibbard, events coordinator at the Penn Bookstore, said she felt the event was "pretty well-attended" and that Skousen was a "fountain of knowledge about Benjamin Franklin."
"He brings a freshness and passion to it that a [regular] historian might not have."
