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Benjamin Franklin is widely remembered for his discovery of electricity. But according to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Stacy Schiff, his greatest achievement may have been his diplomatic skills in the years immediately after the Declaration of Independence was issued. Franklin persuaded the French government to provide the equivalent of $13 billion dollars in today’s money to help fund the colonial army’s fight against the British. Her new book is titled A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America.