{"id":17146,"date":"2022-08-11T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17146"},"modified":"2022-08-10T22:22:56","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T02:22:56","slug":"david-mccullough-things-didnt-have-to-turn-out-as-well-as-they-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17146","title":{"rendered":"David McCullough: &#8216;Things Didn&#8217;t Have to Turn Out as Well as They Did&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The engagingly readable historian David McCullough, 89, died this week.  In 1992, he said he wanted readers to know &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/millersbookreview.substack.com\/p\/bookish-diversions-david-mccullough?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\">that things didn\u2019t have to turn out as well as they did<\/a>. I want them to know that life felt every bit as uncertain to people back then as it does to us today.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">McCullough was awarded Pulitzer Prizes for two books, <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3SBbXMd\"><em>Truman<\/em><\/a> and <em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3PgsstW\">John Adams<\/a><\/em>. He also received two National Book Awards for <em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3SFQOR0\">The Path Between the Seas<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3p89qvx\">Mornings on Horseback<\/a><\/em>. He wrote many other books, those most recently published being <em>The Wright Brothers<\/em>, <em>The American Spirit<\/em>, and <em>The Pioneers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/imprimis.hillsdale.edu\/knowing-history-and-knowing-who-we-are\/\">He made the case for reading history <\/a>much like we&#8217;ve made a case for reading literature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>History isn\u2019t just something that ought to be taught or ought to be read or ought to be encouraged because it\u2019s going to make us a better citizen. It will make us a better citizen; or because it will make us a more thoughtful and understanding human being, which it will; or because it will cause us to behave better, which it will. It should be taught for pleasure: The pleasure of history, like art or music or literature, consists of an expansion of the experience of being alive, which is what education is largely about. <\/p><cite>&#8220;Knowing History and Knowing Who We Are,&#8221; <em>Imprimis<\/em>, April 2005<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The engagingly readable historian David McCullough, 89, died this week. In 1992, he said he wanted readers to know &#8220;that things didn\u2019t have to turn out as well as they did. I want them to know that life felt every bit as uncertain to people back then as it does to us today.&#8221; McCullough was &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17146\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">David McCullough: &#8216;Things Didn&#8217;t Have to Turn Out as Well as They Did&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,13],"tags":[4295,1215],"class_list":["post-17146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-reading","tag-david-mccullough","tag-history"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17147,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17146\/revisions\/17147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}