David McCullough
David Gaub McCullough (* July 7, 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American historian, biographer, short story writer and lecturer.
Life
David Gaub McCullough is the son of Ruth Rankin and Christian Hax McCullough. He is Irish- Scottish descent and grew up with his three brothers in his hometown of Pittsburgh on. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts, is since 1954 with Rosalee Barnes McCullough Ingram, whom he knows since he was 17 years old, married. The couple has five children and 18 grandchildren. His son, David Jr., teacher at Wellesley High School, was known nationally as well as internationally in 2012, when he admonished in his closing speech to his students that they were nothing special.
Career
McCullough went to Linden Avenue Grade School and Shady Side Academy. From 1951 he studied English at Yale University, where people like John O'Hara, John Hersey, Robert Penn Warren, Brendan Gill and Thornton Wilder taught. During his studies he became a member of Skull & Bones connection. He also volunteered at Time, Life, United States Information Agency and the American Heritage. With isolated attend art classes McCullough graduated in 1955 with honors in English Literature. He was then trained at Sports Illustrated in New York City as a journalist and worked for 12 years as an editor at United States Information Agency in Washington, DC and the American Heritage.
During his work at Heritage, he worked for three years on his first non-fiction book, which was published under the title The Johnstown Flood of 1968. The chronicle of the breach of the South Fork Dam and the flooding of the city of Jamestown, Pennsylvania with more than 2209 people killed, was praised by critics. After success of the first book offered it to two publishers to write about the Great Fire of Chicago and the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Instead, he chose over the Brooklyn Bridge and to write the construction of the Panama Canal. Both The Great Bridge (1972 ) and The Path Between the Seas (1977 ) was both praised by the critics. For the latter, he was awarded the 1978 National Book Award, Francis Parkman Prize, Cornelius Ryan Award and Samuel Eliot Morison Award. It is also the only book which he published in German language. Published in 1978 the Fool publishing the book under the title They divided the earth: adventure and history of the last and most pioneering, the building of the Panama Canal. End of 1977, McCullough traveled to Washington, where he advised U.S. President Jimmy Carter and the Senate of the United States, to give up control over the channel. According to Carter's statement, the Torrijos -Carter Treaties would never have been, had it not been the book.
He then devoted himself to the biographies and published with Mornings on Horseback 1981 on the 26th President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, his first. He described the life of Roosevelt years 1869-1886. , He won his second National Book Award, and the Los Angeles Times Prize for Biography and the New York Public Library Literary Lion Award. His second biography was published only 11 years later. With Truman McCullough describes the life history of U.S. President Harry S. Truman and was honored for his first Pulitzer Prize for the best biography or autobiography. The book itself was founded in 1995 by HBO under the title Truman - The man who wrote the book with Gary Sinise filmed in the lead role.
Also for his subsequent biography John Adams about the U.S. President John Adams, which was preceded by a seven-year labor, he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize. It was one of the fastest -selling non-fiction books in history. Also it was filmed again by HBO. This time, Paul Giamatti played the lead role in a seven episodes spanning mini-series John Adams. Four years later, was released in 2005 with 1776 his fourth biography, which focuses on George Washington and the complications of the compilation of the army and other difficulties of the American Revolutionary War. The book was printed with an initial circulation of 1.25 million and was for weeks at the top of the bestseller list. A film adaptation as a mini-series was also being considered. He also wanted to write a sequel to the book. However, with The Greater Journey was published in 2011 a book about Americans, including Mark Twain and Samuel Morse, who emigrated 1830-1900 to Paris, France.
Awards
McCullough was awarded the 2006 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States. As early as 1995 he was awarded the Medal for Distinguished Contribution, an award for Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Foundation. He was also twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize, twice the National Book Award and twice with the Francis Parkman Prize. For his services he was awarded by different institutions and universities more than 40 honorary degrees.
In 1993, McCullough was elected as the first for the annual changing John Hersey Lecture at Yale University Yale University.
His books have been translated into ten languages and have sold over nine million copies.
Work
- The Johnstown Flood ( 1968)
- The Great Bridge ( 1972)
- The Path Between the Seas (1977 ) They divided the earth: adventure and history of the last and most pioneering, the building of the Panama Canal, Scherz Verlag, Zurich 1978
Filmography
David McCullough has worked since the early 1980s isolated as the narrator in several Oscar nominees documentaries, series and feature films.