Posted on 08/08/2022 9:23:29 AM PDT by Borges
David McCullough, who was known to millions as an award-winning, best-selling author and an appealing television host and narrator with a rare gift for recreating the great events and characters of America’s past, died on Sunday at home in Hingham Mass. He was 89.
The death was confirmed by his daughter Dorie Lawson.
Mr. McCullough won Pulitzer Prizes for two presidential biographies, “Truman” (1992) and “John Adams” (2001). He received National Book Awards for “The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal” (1977) and “Mornings on Horseback” (1981), about the young Theodore Roosevelt and his family.
Deep research and lively readability were hallmarks of his books, and so was their tendency to leap off the shelves. “Truman” topped The New York Times’s best-seller list for 43 weeks; “John Adams” was No. 1 in its first week and has since gone through dozens more printings.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I think that the Johnstown Flood was my favorite. I need to go to his page because I may have read almost all his books. Mr. Mercat and I were driving emergency supplies down to Louisiana after Katrina and Rita and listening to the audio book. When the burning rail road engine slammed into the bridge and caught it all on fire we about went off the road.
Memory Eternal!!!!
David McCullough was a national treasure.
He will be greatly missed.
RIP
“1776” is also excellent.
I love that book! I was never a huge fan of history in high school, but when I read “The Great Bridge” all I could think was THIS is how history should be taught...when the story focuses on the people and the events that shaped their lives at the time they lived, it is so much more interesting that a bunch of dates and wars and treaties. I have often gone back to reread the course study that Roebling followed at Rensellear college - OMG, it was grueling. Our “higher education” standards have really gone downhill. Such a great book - I have recommended it many times.
I love that book! I was never a huge fan of history in high school, but when I read “The Great Bridge” all I could think was THIS is how history should be taught...when the story focuses on the people and the events that shaped their lives at the time they lived, it is so much more interesting that a bunch of dates and wars and treaties.
—
Indeed. One of the interesting “nuggets” of knowledge I remember from the book was that when Roebling designed the cables, being a new technology, he designed them to support 10X the intended load. Good thing, as the supplier of the steel cables cheated on the materials and the cables only ended up being 5X beyond rated load.
RIP to a brilliant historian.
Not only an amazing piece of engineering but the hardship and danger that many of the workers subjected themselves to is hard to fathom in this more modern age.
“I liked his book on the building of the Brooklyn Bridge so much that after I was done reading it, I immediately went down there and walked across it a couple of times (I work up on 46th and Lex).”
I crossed it when I visited New York. Scared the hell out of me. I don’t like heights. In my mind I knew I was perfectly safe since I’d read McCullough’s book and knew the bridge was six times stronger than necessary. But I crossed it and came back because I wanted to see the whole thing. Like you said, an amazing feat. Similar to the pyramids, some day far from now, people will wonder how it was built, when the memory of caisson technology will have faded away.
As one who knew friends of Truman in the Pendergast era I will voice that he kept him at arms length. Would he have attacked Pendergast? No but that’s it.
I worked with a former colleague who actually drove to Truman’s house in Independence on a Sunday afternoon unannouced during the American Royal livestock show. My colleague was attending Penn State and was on the livestock judging team. He was a big fan of Truman (actually named one of his sons Truman years later). When he showed up at the front gate, there was a retired sheriff who confronted him. After explaining his motivations to the guard, the guard went into the house, came out and invited him in to have breakfast with him and Bess.
Barry spent the entire day with Mr. Truman. Even went to a program with him later that day.
MFO
Was a “haberdasher” as I recall. Sold men’s clothing
RIP, Mr. McCullough.
Superb author. Although Ambrose plagiarized from time to time, I think McCullough, Ambrose, and Chernow are America’s three best historians.
RIP.
” Not too many authors can bring history to life like McCullough could.”
Thomas Fleming is another good one.
American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer, a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom examines why learning about George Washington is critical to knowing who we are as Americans.David McCullough Interview: The Importance of George Washington
November 17, 2016 | George Washington's Mount Vernon | 16:36
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