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deadpresidents · 2 years

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Sad to hear about David McCullough dying recently. He's written some great biographies.

Yes, I was also saddened by his recent passing. When it comes to writers and historians, David McCullough has always been one of my heroes. I feel that very few historians have had the ability to make such deeply-researched, scholarly work as readable as David McCullough was able to do. In almost every instance, his books were as literary as they were historical, and that required very distinct talents as a storyteller. When I was growing up, it was McCullough who first made me realize that, when done masterfully at the highest level, writing history could be a form of art. And David McCullough was clearly an artist.

I've been a fan of pretty much every book that David McCullough ever wrote, from his biographies of John Adams (undoubtedly my favorite of his Presidential biographies), Theodore Roosevelt, and Harry S Truman to The Johnstown Flood and The Great Bridge, among others. And while his entire bibliography is worth checking out, I think his masterpiece is The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914. I'll miss his voice (as a writer, of course, but also his literal voice as a narrator of documentaries) and am disappointed that we won't get new books from him, but he leaves behind a legendary library of work and I'll always be grateful for the example he set as a writer and as a lifelong advocate for expanding history literacy in the United States.

#David McCullough #RIP #RIP David McCullough #History #Historians #Writers #Writing #History Literacy #John Adams #Mornings On Horseback #Truamn #The Johnstown Flood #The Great Bridge #Brooklyn Bridge #The Path Between the Seas #Panama Canal #Art #Artists

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