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Tuesday, March 19, 2024
The Observer

Know Thy Shelf

With the election this week, it would be remiss to neglect one of the greatest American popular historical authors of our time: David McCullough.
Biographers like McCullough not only know how to write, but also meet the challenge of portraying America's history in a way that is engaging, enlightening and truthful.
Perhaps the best modern biography today, McCullough's "Truman" (1992) won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. McCullough took every step to understand Truman better - he literally reenacted the president's daily morning walk around Independence, Mo. The book won a Pulitzer and HBO turned it into a movie.
"What I demand is accuracy for the sake of imagination," he said in an interview with the New York Times in 1992.
The Yale graduate stands out for his thorough research and uncanny ability to bring historical figures to life. Charming and eye-opening anecdotes from letters and diaries give subjects like Truman and John Adams a modern voice and modern relevance. McCullough, who won the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor for a civilian, in 2006, said he wrote "Truman" in response to what he viewed as shallow political debate.
"I felt that something needed to be said before people made a choice," he said. "This book is about the country, not just about Harry Truman. It's about who we are and what we can be."
Even though his books can be found at Barnes and Noble, don't mistake McCullough for just another trade fiction sensation. McCullough writes American life through the details that made up our forefathers' past. While this usually means his tomes sometimes reach 1,000 pages, the story is well worth it. McCullough reportedly read every page of "Truman" aloud to his wife to make sure it sounded like he was talking to his readers. McCullough also won the Pulitzer Prize for his non-fiction book, "John Adams" (2001), which was one of the fastest-selling non-fiction books in history. HBO made it into a mini-series starring Paul Giamatti, which is worth any history buff's free time. McCullough's writing is definitely well-informed, but he manages to stay away from pedantic plodding through history. He instead populates what would be dull records and lists with the most important part of historical study: the people. Sometimes it's easy to forget that movements, events, rallies, bills, wars and treaties aren't just documents. They're spurred by intensely dynamic and painfully human individuals.
Not only does this make politics enormously complicated, it also makes history heart-stopping and dramatic.
Even though the confetti probably still lies on the ground in Chicago, it's strange to think: What will historians write about President Barack Obama? What parts of the election last night would McCullough include if he were to write "Obama"? Would this be the doom-and-gloom chapter? Or the tipping point for a new golden age in American history?
"History is the story of people," McCullough said. Now more than ever, Americans are cognizant of how just one person can change the historical landscape.
Contact Meghan Thomassen at
mthomass@nd.edu
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Observer.