History Matters

The Vineyard lost an irreplaceable gift when David McCullough died in 2022, two months after the death of his wife, Rosalee, whom he referred to as “my editor in chief and the star I steer by.” She was a true collaborator in his success as a writer, humanist, and celebrant of American history. Gone with McCullough is a sense of connection to living history. A natural storyteller, he was best known for his biographies (John Adams, Thedore Roosevelt, the Wright Brothers, Harry Truman), accounts of pivotal historical achievements (Brooklyn Bridge, Panama Canal), and events (1776). Most of them were best-sellers. A common thread, he once said in an interview, was learning from one’s mistakes and persisting in the face of adversity. He received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award twice. He also excelled as an orator and documentary narrator.
McCullough’s many admirers are no doubt thrilled that those who worked with him day in and day out have carried on the tradition of his written words. Co-edited by Michael Hill and McCullough’s daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson, “History Matters” is the fortuitous result (Simon & Schuster, 2025, 168 pages). The book is a collection of essays, speeches, and interviews, some of them published here for the first time. They range from an appreciation of the painter Thomas Eakins, to a tribute of Yale professor Vincent Scully, to an introduction to little-known polymath Manasseh Cutler (1742–1823), to a list of his favorite books. Though the selection may seem random, taken together they offer a deeper, more nuanced appreciation of the man who didn’t think of himself as a historian. There is no arguing the fact that he was a terrific storyteller.
“The marvelous thing about the past,” McCullough wrote in a 1991 address, “is whenever you reach down into it, all you find is life.” People, in other words: how they coped in simpler times with simpler tools, and how the changes they effected changed them. He believed that “… what draws us to history, the pull of the past, is change.” Because, he implies, understanding prior changes helps us deal with the present, no matter how confusing and formidable it may seem. He described himself as “… a short-term pessimist and a long-term optimist,” convinced “that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.” Unlikely words for anyone not firmly grounded in history.
As critical to his success as the topics he chose was his approach to writing about them. First, the tool of his trade: a 1941 Royal typewriter he’d used since 1964. “I love putting paper in,” he said in a Paris Review interview. “I love the way the keys come up and actually print the letters. I love when I swing that carriage and the bell rings like an old trolley car. I love the feeling of making something with my hands.” But why not a computer, which most contemporary writers prefer? “When I’m retyping … I’m listening, hearing what I’ve written. Writing should be done for the ear.”
Writing is also analogous to painting, according to McCullough, who studied portraiture in college. “Drawing is learning to see, and so is writing.” The insides of both covers of “History Matters” are McCullough watercolors, one of the front of the family home on Music Street in West Tisbury, the other of the view out back, including his writing shed.

As for the effort it takes to write, McCullough welcomed the challenge: “I like [writing] because it is hard. And because I don’t know how it’s going to come out.” Suspense is also a critical ingredient in writing history, he believed. “That’s the hardest thing to convey in writing or teaching history — that nothing had to happen the way it happened.”
Curiosity is essential for success as a writer, McCullough believed. Research was both essential and a pleasure, the former to ensure accuracy, the latter because you never know what might turn up by accident. “The great pull of a project is the thought of how much I am going to learn.”
McCullough also provides a list of writing tips: Beginnings are crucial, get right on with it; let your characters speak for themselves; write for the ear as well as the eye; put what you’ve written on the shelf for a while, then read it again; rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite; keep your hero in trouble.
With a career as long and successful as David McCullough’s, summing it up is no mean feat. “History Matters” helps fill in some of the blanks, as does the plain speaking that characterizes the quotes above. To use his voice yet again, consider this, though it was written in a tribute to Herman Wouk: “Never the kind of historian who writes only for other historians, this immensely gifted storyteller has brought … history to life as only a very few novelists have been able to do, and we are all his beneficiaries.” How applicable.