"[Those with] Great Abilities Have Not Always the Best Information": How Franklin's Transatlantic Book-Trade and Scientific Networks Interacted, ca. 1730–1757

This article establishes the importance of overlapping modes of reputation making in Benjamin Franklin's mutually reinforcing careers as naturalist and printer (ca. 1730–57). It reevaluates the key trans-Atlantic relationships on which Franklin relied and demonstrates the interdependence of Franklin's objectives and those of his colleagues in determining their shared social progress. Finally, it explores the changing perceptions of British Atlantic society within the communities in which Franklin participated. In doing so it illustrates how the experience of belonging to particular Anglo-American social networks directly shaped members' attitudes toward nation and empire.