Our curiosity is what separates us from the cabbages- David McCullough
This book collects a smattering of speeches, essays, interviews, and reading lists that David McCullough accumulated over the years, some of which have never been published before. Collected by his daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson, and fellow historical researcher Michael Hall, this really short book (it’s only 176 pages) gives you a good taste of the kind of man McCullough was.
And what type of man was David McCullough? A man who understands history. He understood it shouldn’t be dry or dull, or boring, or written solely about the battles; history, at its best, is about ordinary people going about their lives, doing things that turn out to be extraordinary and world-altering.
History should not ever be dull; it should never be made boring by boring teachers or boring writers- David McCullough
Something that I unfortunately had to deal with in school; my 7th grade Social Studies teacher taught us all about the battles of the Revolutionary War and the battles of the Civil War, and nothing else. And I felt my brain ooze out my ears, because battles are the least interesting thing in my mind. He was also a strident Holocaust denier and a firm believer in that if it didn’t happen in the United States, why would you have any interest in learning about it? You want to learn about another country, then you’d better move there; but then again this was a man who believed the greatest example of screenwriting was the Dick Tracy movie, so his opinions were already suspect.
I also appreciate McCullough’s belief that to truly live, and understand history, you have to appreciate art, and read; read often, read as many books as you can lay your hands on, read a varied range of topics, just read. Reading this inspired me to look into not only several of his books, but also one of his daughter’s, and at least another two dozen he recommends. It’s sad that he’s right that Americans used to be better educated and better read; that people could quote books and plays and not need quotation marks, because they knew the majority of people would recognize them. (For no other proof of that, you need to read about the letters that John and Abigail Addams exchanged, or the fact that Nathan Hale was quoting Joseph Addison’s Cato when he said “I regret that i have but one life to give for my country”.)
Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free, expects what never was and will never be.-Thomas Jefferson
It is never stated, but in my opinion, David McCullough’s favorite line in 1776 was probably when Benjamin Franklin said, “Wise men, no more no less, trying to get a nation started against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed.” I am glad to see there was one more person out there in the world that understood the allure of typing things out on a typewriter (I may not rival Tom Hanks’ collection, but I have to confess I have four working typewriters that I frequently have ink stains on my hands from with changing out the ribbons). Or of waking up Christmas morning to find a wrapped book waiting at the foot of the bed (this is why I envy Icelanders; they have Jólabókaflóðið, or the “Christmas Book Flood”, where they exchange books on Christmas Eve and spend the entire night reading.)
If you have a love of history, and want to read essays by someone who has a refreshing view on it, I would recommend this book.
