Volume 48, Number 10 · June 21, 2001
In the American Grain
By Gordon S. Wood
John Adams
David McCullough
Simon and Schuster, 751 pp., $35.00
David McCullough is America's most celebrated popular historian. Not only is he the author of a number of excellent best-selling works of history, including his Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry Truman, but for years he has been the mellifluous narrator of PBS's American Experience and several historical documentaries, including Ken Burns's Civil War. When most people think about America's premier historians, they think first about David McCullough. He has more than taken the place in American culture once occupied by Barbara Tuchman. Unlike Tuchman, who feuded with university professors of history, McCullough has the respect of academic historians, maybe because he respects them. McCullough actually attends historical conferences and sits patiently listening to long specialized papers.[1] Anyone who does that, and doesn't have to, deserves respect.
Review, 4953 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |