It seems to me that one of the truths about history that needs to be portrayed is that nothing ever had to happen the way it happened. Delivered in February 2005 in Arizona at a Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar, McCullough gave a speech titled "Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are." It was a master class on how to teach history and why it matters. Photo by Stephen Rose/Getty ImagesĪnd so, on the week that Americans honor the loss of a national treasure, it's fitting that one of his finest speeches be a part of the celebration of a life beautifully lived. And not just as a historian but as a fellow human being.ĭavid McCullough in his writing shed at his home in West Tisbury, Massachusetts, on February 4, 2002.
That judging historical figures-real-life men and women-outside of their historical context to advance a political or ideological narrative was not just bad history but an exhibition of bad faith. And, most important, that context mattered. McCullough was America's greatest historian because he knew that stories mattered. Some of those subjects included the Brooklyn Bridge and the man who built it, John Roebling ( The Great Bridge) the creation of the Panama Canal ( The Path Between the Seas) the biggest year in American history, which was not 1619 ( 1776) the American brothers who got to man-powered flight first ( The Wright Brothers) a flood ( The Johnstown Flood) and three American presidents ( Truman, Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt and John Adams, which became an award-winning HBO series).ĭavid McCullough, who was raised in Pittsburgh, studied English literature at Yale and became America's unofficial historian emeritus, also won praise for his voiceover work in an acclaimed documentary ( The Civil War by Ken Burns) and a superb film ( Seabiscuit). He died Sunday at the age of 89 at his home in Hingham, Massachusetts, but his work will live on forever because the subjects he tackled were as big, bold and remarkable as the country he wrote about and loved, America.
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