The Amazing Ben 'n Jen Considered

It seems easy to view Jill Lepore's Book of Ages as a biography, particularly when she calls it a biography (although one that she says "borrows from the conventions of fiction").  (P. 269).  But her tipoff about fiction is only one element that seems to also make the book a microhistory.  Others include, for example, the use of a personal, discreet event (the sibling relationship of Franklin and Mecom) as a lens on a number of larger issues in the 18th century: issues of women, poverty, debtors, lunatics, medicine, politics, fame, the rise from humble origins, and even history.  It also uses letters as its primary source, a microhistory hallmark.  Additionally, it focuses (at least partially) on the life of an "obscure" person.  Perhaps the moral of this book, and our class, is that the definition of a microhistory can cover an extremely broad spectrum of "conventions of different kinds of writing about lives."  (P. 270).