David McCullough
David McCullough
David Gaub McCulloughis an American author, narrator, historian, and lecturer. He is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian award...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionHistorian
Date of Birth7 July 1933
CityPittsburgh, United States
CountryUnited States of America
history who-we-are way
History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.
past
Nobody ever lived in the past.
hard-work mind lasts
The title always comes last. What I really work hard on is the beginning. Where do you begin? In what tone do you begin? I almost have to have a scene in my mind.
book writing interesting
My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.
war inspiration september-11
Since September 11, it seems to me that never in our lifetime, except possibly in the early stages of World War II, has it been clearer that we have as a source of strength, a source of direction, a source of inspiration - our story.
writing needs knows
In time I began to understand that it's when you start writing that you really find out what you don't know and need to know.
war book army
My next book is also set in the eighteenth century. Its about the Revolution, with the focus on the year 1776. Its about Washington and the army and the war. Its the nadir, the low point of the United States of America.
thinking people mind
I think it's best to pick a biographical subject who lives to a ripe old age. Older people tend to relax and speak their minds. They're dropping some of the masks that they've been wearing. There's a candor.
war book europe
With the Truman book, I wrote the entire account of his experiences in World War I before going over to Europe to follow his tracks in the war. When I got there, there was a certain satisfaction in finding I had it right - it does look like that.
lying thinking people
The talent, including the talent for history - and I do think there are people who just have a talent for it, the way you have a talent for public speaking or music or whatever - it shouldn't be allowed to lie dormant. It should be brought alive.
who-we-are cost has-beens
How can we know who we are and where we are going if we don't know anything about where we have come from and what we have been through, the courage shown, the costs paid, to be where we are?
thinking people havens
I often think of that when I hear people say that they haven't time to read.
past who-we-are today
Each generation, we peel back biases that have blinded those before us. The more we know about the past enables us to ask richer and more provocative questions about who we are today.
people flavor tables
History is about life. It's awful when the life is squeezed out of it and there's no flavor left, no uncertainties, no horsing around. It always disturbed me how many biographers never gave their subjects a chance to eat. You can tell a lot about people by how they eat, what they eat, and what kind of table manners they have.