Man Of History

David McCullough, who died recently at the age of 89, was one of America's most passionate and patriotic historians.  In addition to his books about the Brooklyn Bridge and the Wright Brothers, he wrote definitive biographies of some of this country's greatest leaders.

His biography of Harry Truman made it clear that Truman was not the simple, gray-matter politician with absolutist views and plain old horse sense that many people remember him to be.  McCullough showed how complicated Truman was, and also how his peers greatly respected him; part of the reason Truman was nominated for Vice President in 1944 was because Democratic leaders knew President Roosevelt would not live through a fourth term in the White House and they wanted someone the could trust to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. 

Similarly, McCullough sought to make it clear that John Adams was an acerbic country lawyer, not a Boston blueblood in the matter of future Boston Brahmins such as the Holmeses and the Lodges.  McCullough explained that Adams was in fact a brilliant legal thinker who contributed much to the founding of the United States and always held a grudge that his role in the Revolution was overshadowed by Washington, whom he greatly admired, and Benjamin Franklin, whom he disliked intensely.  Adams, ever the critic of the king of England, was nonetheless appointed as minister to Great Britain, a post brilliantly handled not just by himself but by his son and grandson.  Yet McCullough also showed how Adams made a name for himself as a lawyer, defending the British soldiers on trial for murder as a result of the Boston Massacre showing that, despite a strong desire for a rush to judgment, even the hated British soldiers deserved a fair trial.  

McCullough held history sacred, so much that he was one of many historians who publicly denounced - and helped stop - a Disney historical theme park that the Disney company had planned for Virginia near Civil War battlefields.  As an historian of great integrity, he will be very much missed.  RIP.