David McCullough: History and the American Spirit

[@oleeb]

It’s an absolute joy to listen to such a vibrant, insightful human being.

[@peterjohnson617]

The kind of man that makes me so very glad I am a reader......... Thanks for all the many,many hours of enjoyment reading your books.......

[@BrettLeMans]

Thank you for uploading this...I've watched every David McCullough video there is...."His Voice Helps Me Sleep..." - God Bless Him

[@Listen-to-Lucy]

Omg I literally just said the same thing to a friend of mine! That voice is a national treasure : )

[@kathleenmurphy2379]

He has a soothing voice and it's like being told a bedtime story! It's not that it's boring me fall asleep it's that he's able to make you relax with his story and you forget what you're worried about and you fall asleep! He said someone came up to him at a book signing or something at one of his talks my book signings and said the same thing that your voice makes me fall asleep and I think David took it the wrong way. He made it a joke and as if it was a self-deprecating part of one of his talks!!! But it wasn't meant that way and the audience laughed but it's true if you have insomnia it's a bedtime story told by a favorite parent

[@Pablo123456x]

@@kathleenmurphy2379 your comment gets me more sleepy than David's voice. Thanks.

[@JoeDReady]

I'm incredibly grateful for the insights David McCullough gives in this presentation. Just think if every high school in America had a required semester in, let's say, the 10th grade in which McCulloughs books and lectures formed formed the curriculum and every student had to write a brief paper or two on what he or she learned from listening to him (or from one of his amazingly intriguing books). The glow of a new dawn of learning might brighten the dull, monotonous, overly whiny, postmodern blather that students have to endure in our public schools. McCullough is a national treasure. Teachers should be required to read his books no matter their subject areas (yes even in the STEM categories) simply to feast on elegant, enlightening, elevating education from a man who was himself inspired by teachers who loved the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.

[@leftyshawenuph4026]

I ran across one the other day when he died, and have been stuck on them ever since.

[@veritas6335]

So sorry to hear we lost Mr McCullough this year. He was indeed a charmer and inspired many Americans to know more about our history by virtue of his own personal delight in knowing and communicating that history to the rest of us. I miss him and am grateful for the many talks and lectures that are available to us through KZbin that will keep him alive for us for years to come.

[@friendlyone2706]

"There is no such thing as a foreseeable future." Best quote of the speech, from an historian who knows more deeply than most how the past is filled with improbable, unforeseeable moments

[@user-tj9bg6tz2p]

Well, I tend to agree. That said, people (like those of us who watch these programs) who study history and are interested in the opinions of historians, are less likely to be surprised by the future than those don't bother to learn the lessons of the past. there isn't a foreseeable future per se so I'm not sure history repeats - it's more like it rhymes :)

[@friendlyone2706]

@@user-tj9bg6tz2p People who say we don't learn from the past are 100% wrong. We do learn from the past -- but the past is always an incomplete message (one of the consequences to light having a speed limit, a logical consequence is knowledge cones), and an incomplete message is necessarily unreliable learning. Blue, lieu, lew, few too, two... near rhyming info leads to random. :)

[@user-tj9bg6tz2p]

@@friendlyone2706 thats a great point.

[@willmpet]

I have a History major and I graduated from the College of Education at Minnesota (Twin-Cities). I was fortunate to have Mrs. Meyers in fourth grade, Mrs. Bashara in seventh grade, Miss Palm in eighth grade, Mr. Mohr in tenth grade, and Prof. Starling Price when in college, Prof. Knapp in graduate school!

[@lizgichora6472]

Education is the unifying factor, history is essential for leadership, great statemanship and teacher. 'Blessed memory' always David McCollough.

[@friendlyone2706]

Why do this man's books feel so honest? He explains near the beginning: He discovers his theme after, not before, his research and analysis.

[@elainemarra9790]

Just terrific ❤

[@kimmanning2913]

"If you can get the reader, the student into the *humanity* of the person...it's in the letters that Harry Truman wrote to Bess or Abigail to John Adams. That's when you really get inside the humanity of it."

[@kirkbowyer3249]

GOD BLESS DAVID MCCULLOUGH

[@friendlyone2706]

During the question - answer session, an "Informed librarian" repeated the oft repeated falsehood woman of Jefferson's time had no vote. 1800, several places single women had full voting rights. By 1807, those rights were lost because of what no place had: the secret ballot.

[@user-tj9bg6tz2p]

a sad loss. Mr McCullough died 7 Aug this year

[@kimmanning2913]

"For all Americans, including Native Americans, people of African descent, and women who didnt get to vote until 1920."

[@kimmanning2913]

"When in the course of human events, the operative word there is HUMAN."

[@itinerantpatriot1196]

As an undergrad, I came into the study of American history a fan of Jefferson and by the end of it I was in the Washington/Adams camp. Jefferson was sort of the Che Guevara of his day (not the nastier side of the guy, but the constant revolutionary type). I liked that he had a healthy fear of federal power but as Mr. McCullough points out, Jefferson had that good enough for me but not for thee side to him and he did a lot of his dirty work in the political arena through operatives because he hated direct confrontation. That's to be expected I guess, especially given the times, but he never owned any of it and it was left to Adams to make the first move to restoring peace between them. Adams was vain and quick-tempered but he was without a doubt the hardest working of the founders and he had a strong sense of justice. He also understood people better than Jefferson. The Alien and Sedition Acts submarined his presidency but he never really had the temperament for the job anyway. RIP John Adams. I'm sorry to say your greatest fear seems to be coming to fruition as we are showing ourselves to be unworthy of all you sacrificed for.

[@kimmanning2913]

"He knew this had to be rectified and so this document was created that would eventually take us out of Egypt."

[@johncollins7062]

The [ Natural Superiority of Women ] is not only a book title; but, also, an established fact. Many call the Winchester 1873 ‘The gun that won the west’; but, it was actually the women of the west who completed our manifest destiny. Just as they have done for thousands of centuries, ‘Wild West’ women made; lonely men happy, dirty men clean, drinking men sober, undefined men pious, hungry men comforted, passive men strong and single men whole. How can so many animals maintain this familial symbiosis, but so many humans not recognize its benefits?

[@bobtaylor170]

Otherwise known as God's plan for the fulfillment, prospering, and co - creation of the human race: marriage. Marriage isn't for all, and same sex marriage is a sacrilege, but for most people, marriage blesses.

[@johncollins7062]

@@bobtaylor170- ...and the loss of a spouse is just a temporal example of how deeply true separation can be felt. A same sex hook-up will never come close to that connection.

[@kimmanning2913]

"Cutler got thru the Congess." "There would be complete freedom of Religion. There would be public support for Public Education..and No Slavery." "A minister of the church in Hamilton...and No Slavery was saved by one vote."

[@kimmanning2913]

And don't ever leave the WOMEN out." "And their part was not only identifiable but invaluable always." "THE NATURAL SUPERIORITY OF WOMEN" 🙂

[@syourke3]

“The American Spirit”? WTF is that?! Serious critical historians don’t use such phrases. Only court historians do. But only court historians write bestsellers about American presidents. Doris Kearns Goodwin. David Beschloss. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr..

[@JB-uv4hm]

Society’s need myths and people who tell them.

[@syourke3]

@@JB-uv4hm Ruling elites need myths.

[@JB-uv4hm]

@@syourke3 the masses need myths.

[@bobtaylor170]

WTF is a "serious critical historian?" David McCullough was right; historians are curious people who love to understand and tell stories. "Serious critical historians" are masters at making people avoid reading history. Several years ago, I was acquainted with a guy of about thirty whose obsession was getting a Ph.D in history from the "right" University and becoming a "serious critical historian." I kept asking him why he, with his solid undergraduate education, undeniable writing skill, and understanding of how to research, didn't start working on a book? He never had an answer. It eventually became evident to me that he didn't want to write books which ordinary, intelligent people would want to read, he wanted to be among the world's elite 100 in his particular field. He wanted to be in The Inner Ring, which C.S. Lewis was so wary of, to be invited to the "right" dinners, asked to speak at the "right" gatherings, have his bum kissed by the "right" people. He certainly had no interest in teaching history to the American people. A David McCullough is worth several hundred such people. The aforesaid social climber is now in a good doctoral program at an acceptable university. I predict that because what he wants most is glory for himself instead of to teach others, he will fall flat on his face.

[@Smuggler169]

What the Margaret’s think of the education system today?

[@dks13827]

Hey David...... our stupid teachers wrecked the U.S.

[@elainemarra9790]

Foolish broad statement 🙄

[@bobbybrooks4826]

Dead And burried last year And there's another demon in hell

[@JB-uv4hm]

Not much of a reader are you.

[@bobbybrooks4826]

@@JB-uv4hm hilarious....i put My education ( and all the reading it took) up to yours anyday ,. If You don't HAVE money to bet don't respond 8 don't accept food Stamps...If You don't HAVE a serious Phd don't respond because i don't want to take money FROM a total inferior

[@elainemarra9790]

Fool

[@JB-uv4hm]

Fiction.