"The American Spirit"

Sydney M. Williams

Burrowing into Books

Reviews of Selective Readings

                                                                                                                                           July 5, 2017

“The American Spirit”

David McCullough

“History…is human. It is about people, and they speak across the years.”

                                                                                                            David McCullough

Introduction

The American Spirit

“Washington,” McCullough tells us in a speech at Ohio University, “…regretted all his life that he never had the advantage of a formal education.” But he understood its importance. He once wrote: “knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.” David McCullough exudes that sentiment.

Mr. McCullough, who has no advanced degrees in history and has never been employed as a professor – he has a bachelor’s in English literature from Yale – is rightly considered one of our foremost historians. He is the author of ten books, ranging from “The Johnstown Flood” to “The Wright Brothers.” He has written on John Adams, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman and the Panama Canal.

“The American Spirit” comprises speeches given over twenty-seven years. The first is to a joint session of Congress, titled “Simon Willard’s Clock.” The last, in 2016, again in Washington, D.C., this time at the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, and titled “A Building Like No Other,” is a discussion of the Capitol building. In between are thirteen addresses to colleges, universities and other groups.

Mr. McCullough takes an unvarnished look at our past, not through rose-colored glasses or via a white-washed version to meet today’s standards, but history as it was. While the emphasis is deservedly on the honor and glory of people and the nation, he does not shy from shame. 

While there is no over-riding theme, his speeches celebrate the men and women and the events in which they were involved, all of which make up our common history. He reminds students at Ohio University in 2004 that history is the study of people living in what was their present: “No one lived in the past, only the present.” Lincoln knew his Emancipation Proclamation was the right thing to do, but it is only us, a hundred and fifty years later, who can see the fruits of his wisdom and efforts. “Let us not look down on anyone from the past,” he told students at Dickenson, “for not having the benefit of what we know.” He has a rare ability to link historical figures. For example, in a speech at Lafayette College commemorating the 250^th birthday of the Marquis de Lafayette, he segues from Lafayette to Cole Porter, and John Singer Sargent to Thomas Jefferson. Paris is the common denominator.

As much as anything, he emphasizes education, reading, and on why me must continue to learn. “Make the love of learning central to your life,” he tells students at Boston College. “What a difference it can mean.” In a gesture that particularly appeals to me, Mr. McCullough dedicates this book to his nineteen grandchildren, a loving legacy to those lucky children who carry within them the genes of a man who loves learning and who is still, after all these years, awed by the landscape that is our past.