David McCullough, Pulitzer-Prize Winning Historian, Dies at 89
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David McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, historian and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, died on Sunday. He was 89 years old.
“David McCullough was a national treasure,” Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp said in a statement announcing his death. “His books brought history to life for millions of readers. Through his biographies, he dramatically illustrated the most ennobling parts of the American character.”
McCullough’s daughter, Dorie Lawson, confirmed that her father died at his home in Hingham, Mass., on Sunday but did not give a cause of death, according to the New York Times.
McCullough was a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, having been awarded for two of his presidential biographies: Truman in 1992 and John Adams in 2001. Truman, which he researched and wrote over a span of 10 years, topped the New York Times‘s bestseller list for 43 weeks.
He won the National Book Award for The Path Between the Seas about the building of the Panama Canal and for his biography of Theodore Roosevelt, Mornings on Horseback.
McCullough’s book detailing the Brooklyn Bridge’s construction, The Great Bridge, was ranked 48 on the Modern Library’s list of the best 100 nonfiction works of the 20th century.
He narrated the 1990 Ken Burns series The Civil War and offered historical context in the 2003 film Seabiscuit. McCullough hosted the public television series American Experience from 1988 to 1999, as well as the television magazine Smithsonian World.
The historian was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, in 2006. The award is given to those who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
McCullough said in the 2008 HBO documentary about him, Painting With Words, that he thought of writing history “as an art form.”
“And I’m striving to write a book that might — might — qualify as literature,” he said, according to the Times. “I don’t want it just to be readable. I don’t want it just to be interesting. I want it to be something that moves the reader. Moves me.”
McCullough, who graduated from Yale University in 1955 with honors in literature, received some 40 honorary doctorates throughout his career as a historian.
He is survived by his two daughters, Dorie Lawson and Melissa McDonald, and his three sons, David Jr., William and Geoffrey. He is survived by his brother, George, as well as 19 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, according to the New York Times.
