David McCullough. History Matters. Edited by Dorie McCullough Lawson and Michael Hill. Simon & Schuster, 2025. $27.00. 192 pp.
David McCullough had a very distinctive voice. He was an English major who became perhaps America’s most popular history writer, capable of crafting compelling narrative from years of meticulous research. He was thoroughly patriotic but wrote about the people of the past as people, not marble ideals. He was also famously the narrator for the Ken Burns Civil War documentary. He had a highly recognizable voice on and off the page.
Many of McCullough’s books had lengthy page counts. Though he stayed just outside of Robert Caro territory, there are over 1,000 pages in Truman alone. But the present volume, History Matters, is under 200 pages and includes shorter pieces, some previously published and many previously unpublished. The collection includes a variety of sources, including commencement addresses, interviews, documentary writing, and even some pages he wrote only for himself. It was assembled by McCullough’s daughter, who worked with him for years, and his research assistant for forty years, Michael Hill. The chapters in this book present compelling arguments for the importance of history and character and they help us see a bit more of the man behind the famous voice.
Many, if not all, of the chapters in this book reinforce the message of the title: History Matters. Along with the ways in which history is important to the body politic, McCullough always emphasizes the personal ways in which we are all enriched by history. For example, in 1995 remarks, he told an audience: “I’m convinced that history encourages, as nothing else does, a sense of proportion about life, gives us a sense of the relative scale of our own brief time on earth and how valuable that is.” This book is a cri de coeur for a discipline too often neglected by undergraduates. The rise in historical illiteracy was very concerning to McCullough and this concern appears on a number of these pages.
As the editors hoped, History Matters gives us more insight into the man behind the typewriter and what drew him to his subjects. He loved the painter Thomas Eakins, in part because Eakins’ subjects shared the qualities of “self-discipline, high purpose, and high performance achieved through rigorous training, hard work, and continued study.” Eakins painted many people who had not requested portraits. Eakins chose them because “they all made or contributed something of value to the community—knowledge, healing skill, music, art, and beyond that and of such inestimable value, their example.” McCullough’s love for Eakins gives us an insight into his own thought process. McCullough’s praise for his teachers, like Vincent Scully, and other writers also shows us his generosity of spirit and his gratitude.
Again and again, we see the importance of character for McCullough. It was not only seemingly one of his criteria for writing a biography, but it is perhaps the chief lesson he hopes we will draw from history. He writes that “character counts in the presidency more than any other single quality. It is more important than how much the president knows of foreign policy or economics, or even about politics.” McCullough once began working on a biography of Picasso, but ceased his labors because Picasso was not an admirable person. In contrast, McCullough was well-known for his admiration of Harry Truman, Abigail Adams, and George Washington, among others.
With his overriding belief in character and his open admiration for George Washington, we might be tempted to lean on the idea that McCullough came from a simpler time. Well, he died in 2022, so that would make him a man of our time. It would also be hard to argue that the American twentieth-century was uncomplicated. Further, as McCullough himself emphasized: “There was no simpler time.” He writes of Washington’s troops, “I often think of those troops at night—ragged, forlorn, pathetic troops of Washington’s crossing the Delaware in the snow and the ice to attack on Christmas Eve, Christmas night, the Hessians, the toughest troops in the world, to attack them, this little spindly army—tramping along in the dark and the freezing cold. Some of them didn’t even have shoes. And maybe one turns to the other and says, ‘Yes, but at least we live in a simpler time.’”
In all his work, David McCullough’s approach to the past demonstrated the possibility of clear-sighted patriotism. Not every American was a hero, Trumbull’s paintings were inaccurate, George Washington’s false teeth included the teeth of other people, Teddy Roosevelt’s childhood asthma attacks were likely caused by anxiety—but you can still respect character when you see it and appreciate courage and believe in values that can transcend times. You do not have to deny that Harry Truman had ties to the Pendergast machine in order to appreciate Truman’s strengths. This clear-sighted patriotism is why McCullough could maintain some optimism about America’s future. The good parts of our past were not built on perfect people. In his chapter for Character Above All (1995), he wrote that Harry Truman was one of the best presidents and “a great American. Can we ever have another Harry Truman? Yes, I would say so. Who knows, maybe somewhere in Texas she’s growing up right now.”
People who love David McCullough and miss his historical voice will love this book, but so will anyone who wants to learn more about writing. Through interviews and essays, McCullough gives wide-ranging insights into his approach to research and writing, his understanding of narrative, the importance of people, and the influences on his own work, including teachers and lessons from painting. Some of the information is relevant to any kind of writing, some especially to historical writing. He emphasizes the importance of being familiar with what the people of another time were reading. In many of the letters exchanged by John and Abigail Adams, plays and books are referenced, without quotation marks. Those passages show us the world these people inhabited and also the peril that awaits later generations who attempt to interpret these letters but fail to appreciate context. Even Nathan Hale’s line, “I only regret I have but one life to lose for my country” comes from Cato, a very popular play referenced by so many of the Founding Fathers.
David McCullough was a great writer, deeply interested in people and narrative and history. His own story is like that of many of his subjects, talent married to hard work. It includes the trappings of a certain kind of life, with a typewriter and a writing cabin and a patient wife. But he did not live in a simpler time, he crafted his life in our time. His life and books were not built on nostalgia but decades of research and endless revisions. He had a very pleasing baritone, but his voice will persist because of its emphasis on courage and character and appreciation of the past. The title of this book emphasizes that History Matters, but it has the potential to inspire many people as they shape their own futures.