David McCullough dies

[Rob Wick]

Just saw on the New York Times website that David McCullough died yesterday at the age of 89. I've read almost all of his books (I'm currently listening to his Path Between the Seas about the Panama Canal) and enjoyed many, but I also found some, like John Adams, to be insufferable. He was from western Pennsylvania and given that Tarbell's maternal great-grandfather was named Walter Raleigh McCullough, I've often wondered if there was some relation there, but so far I haven't found any.

The very first McCullough book I read was The Johnstown Flood, which was the first book he wrote. I was so moved by the story that Cheryl and I visited Johnstown and the remains of the dam during the year we went out to Gettysburg and Fallingwater. Of course, McCullough was also the narrator for Ken Burns' "The Civil War."

Many academic historians hated McCullough, but if you measure who "wins" by how many books are sold, then McCullough ran circles around all of them. Of course, that shouldn't be the only measure that matters, but I think many were jealous of McCullough the same way many were jealous of Carl Sandburg.

RIP Mr. McCullough!

Best
Rob