Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author David McCullough dies at 89

David McCulloughis a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who lives and works from the Brooklyn Bridge. From President John Adams to President Harry Truman, he was one of the most popular and influential historians of his time and died, according to his publisher Simon&Schuster. said. He was 89 years old.

McCullough died Sunday in Hingham, Massachusetts, surrounded by his five children. During this difficult time and the support of his many readers over the years," the Facebook post said. 

 McCullough died less than two months after him from his wife Rosalie.

"David McCullough was a national treasure. His books brought history to life for millions of readers. His biography Through his work, he has dramatically portrayed the most noble part of history: an American character," Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp said in a statement.

A joyful and tireless student of the past, McCullough shares his own passion for history with the public devoted to doing He considered himself a lifelong curiosity and everyone blessed with the opportunity to work on the subjects that most interested him. His fascination with architecture and construction influenced his early work on the Panama Canal and the Brooklyn Bridge, and his admiration for leaders he believed to be good people drew him to Adams and Truman. I was. In the '70s and his '80s, he channeled his love of Paris with his 2011 release, The Greater Journey, and his love of aviation with the Wright Brothers bestseller, published in 2015. I enjoyed it.

Beyond his books, the handsome, gray-haired McCullough may have stood out more than any historian. His paternal baritone is known to fans of PBS's The American Experience and Ken Burns' epic documentary Civil War. "Hamilton" author Ron Chernow once called McCullough "both the name and voice of American history."

McCullough's celebration of America's past also led to some of his harshest criticisms. His 2019 book, The Pioneers, has been criticized for minimizing the atrocities committed against his native Americans as 19th-century settlers moved west. In his earlier work, he was accused of avoiding harsher truths about Truman, Adams, and others, and emphasizing storytelling over analysis.

"McCullough's tangible contribution was in treating large-scale historical biographies as another genre for audiences to appreciate, an exercise in character recognition, a credible source of indoctrination and comforting upliftment." I did," Shaun Wilentz wrote in The New Republic. In an AP interview that same year, McCullough responded to his criticism that he was too soft, saying, "Some people don't just want their leaders to have clay legs, they want them to be all clay." answered.

But even his colleagues, who found fault with his work, admired his kindness and generosity and recognized his talent. And millions of readers and a small circle of winners were moved by his story. Over the years, Martha's, Massachusetts, wirelessly in his cottage on the grounds of his home on his vineyard, McCullough perfected his typewriter work for the Royal His Standard, which shaped his thinking. changed and created a market. He helped build the reputations of Truman and Adams and launched a wave of bestsellers about the American Revolution, including McCullough's own "1776."

McCullough won the National Book Award for The Road Between the Seas. , "On the construction of the Panama Canal. And for Theodore Roosevelt's biography "Morning on Horseback." He won the Pulitzer Prize for 1992's 'Truman' and his 2002's 'John Adams'. “The Great Bridge,” a lengthy study of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, ranked him 48th on the list of the 100 Best Works of Nonfiction by the Modern Library. It dates from the 20th century and is still widely regarded as the definitive text of the great projects of the 19th century. On his 80th birthday, his native Pittsburgh renamed his 16th Street Bridge the "David McCullough Bridge."

McCullough also Washington D.C. C. was a favorite of He addressed a joint session of Congress in 1989 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006. Politicians often claimed to have read his books, especially the biographies of Truman and Adams. Jimmy Carter cites "the road between the seas" as a driving factor in his 1977 treaty that returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama, and politicians on both sides of the issue cite it during debates. did. A scholar I met at the White House shortly after he was elected.

The historian was nonpartisan for most of his life. He denounces the Republican presidential candidate as a "giant clown with a gigantic ego." McCullough also had one emphatic cause. On campus and in front of Congress, he once told a Senate committee because of the No Child Left Behind Act, "In many or most schools, history has been put on the back burner or taken off the stove entirely." ', he once said. f Mathematics and reading.

McCullough was also active in preserving historic areas. He was one of several historians and writers who criticized the Walt Disney Company's proposed Civil War theme park in the northern Virginia area. There are none left," McCullough said at the time. "It is almost blasphemy to replace what we have with a plastic, unnatural history, a mechanical history."

It featured a witty New York politician involved in the bridge, but preferred to write about someone he liked compared to choosing a roommate. Pablo's distaste for Picasso's private life led him to abandon a planned book about artists, but his biography of Adams was originally supposed to be about Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

McCullough, whose father and grandfather founded the McCullough Electric Company, was born in Pittsburgh in 1933. A field trip to a nearby site where Washington fought one of his early battles. He majored in English at Yale University, where playwright Thornton he met Wilder, who encouraged the young student to write. McCullough recalls the events that occurred in his home state in 1889—more than 2,000 of his deaths and hurricanes as much as his Katrina occurred more than a century after his. , was a disaster of its time.

McCullough studied the book at his leisure and begged Little, Brown & Co. to publish it in vain. He eventually ended up with Simon & Schuster, who in 1968 released the book with an advance of $5,000 and remained his publisher for the rest of his career.

"The Johnstown Flood" was successful enough that McCullough worried that he would be typecast as the author of the failure "Bad News McCullough." A publisher had asked him to write about the Great Chicago Fire and his 1906 San Francisco earthquake. So in his next book, The Great Bridge, he told the story of his success. "My little or no knowledge of civil engineering, my never doing well in mathematics or physics, or my great interest in mechanical things at least dissuades me. I did," he later wrote. "It was too exciting. There was so much I wanted to know."

McCullough continued with "The Road Between the Seas." "Morning on Horseback," published in 1981 and hailed by Gore Vidal as "a biographical sketch that is part of a new and hailed genre." "Mornings on Horseback" won a National Book Award, but was overshadowed by the release of Edmund Morris' Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt." This is the last time McCullough's book has received his second billing.

He had considered a biography of Franklin Roosevelt, but instead relates it to Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman. McCullough spent the next ten years writing the book, living briefly in Truman's hometown of Independence, Missouri, and making morning walks a routine like the former president.

'Truman', published in 1992, was a million seller, and 40 years ago he resigned with less than a 30% approval rating, and now has virtually the status of a canonized figure for a long time. showed an increase over As an honest and persistent leader. Among the fans of the book were presidential candidate Ross Perot, who openly compared himself to Truman, and first President Bush, who consulted with McCullough when his re-election failed.

The 2001 publication of "John Adams" was equally popular and serviceable on its subject, and Congress commemorated it in honor of the second president later that year. passed a bill to erect a monument. "1776" was published in his 2005, and an illustrated edition was published two years after that.An HBO miniseries based on "John Adams" starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney aired in 2008. Wright brothers.

McCullough had five children of his and happily married, including Truman and Adams, who can be traced back to his wife Rosalie Burns, who married in 1954 and died in June. I felt a sense of closeness to the politicians who He was an editor, a muse and a dearest friend. Marthas At his home on his vineyard, McCullough proudly showed visiting reporters a photo of his first encounter at the Spring Dance.

As newlyweds, they lived. According to "Sixty Minutes", in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, he wrote his second book and his first bestseller, "The Great Bridge ” was the impetus for me to write. He described the bridge as follows. "America's Eiffel Tower."

"You can lift this bridge, turn it over, and underneath it says 'Made In America,'" he told 60 Minutes. Ships passing below, people walking on boardwalks, 24-hour traffic. It still serves its purpose. 

He said, "If there is a civilization wise and grateful enough to take care of it, it will last forever."

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