David McCullough byl vzdělán na Yale a je dvojnásobným držitelem Pulitzerovy ceny i National Book Award. Věnoval se především historické literatuře faktu, přičemž zkoumal americké dějiny a vliv klíčových osobností. Jeho styl se vyznačoval živým vyprávěním a snahou o propojení minulosti s přítomností, čímž jeho díla oslovovala široké publikum.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David McCullough rediscovers an important chapter in the American story: the settling of the Northwest Territory by courageous pioneers who overcame incredible hardships to build a community based on ideals that would define the country.
A profound expansion of David McCullough, Jr.'s popular commencement speech—a call to arms against a prevailing, narrow, conception of success viewed by millions on YouTube—You Are (Not) Special is a love letter to students and parents as well as a guide to a truly fulfilling, happy life. Children today, says David McCullough—high school English teacher, father of four, and son and namesake of the famous historian—are being encouraged to sacrifice passionate engagement with life for specious notions of success. The intense pressure to excel discourages kids from taking chances, failing, and learning empathy and self-confidence from those failures. In You Are (Not) Special, McCullough elaborates on his now-famous speech exploring how, for what purpose, and for whose sake, we're raising our kids. With wry, affectionate humor, McCullough takes on hovering parents, ineffectual schools, professional college prep, electronic distractions, club sports, and generally the manifestations, and the applications and consequences of privilege. By acknowledging that the world is indifferent to them, McCullough takes pressure off of students to be extraordinary achievers and instead exhorts them to roll up their sleeves and do something useful with their advantages.
The incredible true story of the origin of human flight, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough. On a winter day in 1903, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, two unknown brothers from Ohio changed history. But it would take the world some time to believe what had happened: the age of flight had begun, with the first heavier-than-air, powered machine carrying a pilot. Who were these men and how was it that they achieved what they did? David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, tells the surprising, profoundly human story of Wilbur and Orville Wright. Far more than a couple of unschooled Dayton bicycle mechanics who happened to hit on success, they were men of exceptional courage and determination, and of far-ranging intellectual interests and ceaseless curiosity, much of which they attributed to their upbringing. In this thrilling book, McCullough draws on the immense riches of the Wright Papers, including private diaries, notebooks, scrapbooks and more than a thousand letters from private family correspondence to tell the human side of the Wright Brothers' story, including the little-known contributions of their sister, Katharine, without whom things might well have gone differently for them.
V roce 1903 se bratrům Wrightovým jako prvním na světě podařilo vzlétnout se strojem těžším než vzduch, a vykročit tak do nového věku letectví. Jejich dramatický příběh zachytil ve své napínavé knize David McCullough, dvojnásobný držitel Pulitzerovy ceny. Líčí, kdo vlastně byli Wilbur a Orville Wrightovi a jak ke svému objevu dospěli. Opírá se přitom o obrovské množství dokumentů, soukromých deníků, korespondence i alb, a vypráví tak hluboce lidský příběh o jednom velikém splněném snu.
Warum Förderwahn und Verwöhnung mehr schaden als nützen Berühmt wurde David McCullough durch eine Rede vor Highschool-Absolventen, die mit dem provokanten Slogan »Ihr seid nichts Besonderes« zum YouTube-Hit wurde. Der bei den Schülern sehr beliebte Englischlehrer hat damit den Nerv der Zeit getroffen. Er macht deutlich, dass Kinder und Jugendliche heute überbehütet, verwöhnt und viel zu sehr auf oberflächlichen Erfolg getrimmt sind. Mit Herz und Humor nimmt er übereifrige Eltern, fragwürdige Erziehungsziele und ganz allgemein die Privilegien der heutigen Jugend ins Visier. Ein leidenschaftliches Plädoyer zur Zukunft unserer Kinder.
McCullough mixes famous and obscure names and delivers capsule biographies of everyone to produce a colorful parade of educated, Victorian-era American travelers and their life-changing experiences in Paris.
Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known. But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost -- Washington, who had never before led an army in battle
Životopis Johna Adamse, jednoho z otců zakladatelů Spojených států amerických a později jejich druhého prezidenta, se stal bestsellerem možná i proto, že je sestaven na základě jeho deníků a bohaté korespondence. John Adams, jeden z otců zakladatelů Spojených států amerických, dlouho stál ve stínu jiných významných osobností své doby, zejména George Washingtona a Thomase Jeffersona, přestože jeho životní osudy byly mimořádně zajímavé. Svou kariéru začal v Bostonu jako mladý, odvážný advokát. Stal se jedním z účastníků Kontinentálního kongresu ve Filadelfii, což byl zárodek budoucí americké samosprávy. Pomáhal prosadit Prohlášení nezávislosti, kterým se americké kolonie odtrhly od Velké Británie. Byl jedním z vůdců americké války za nezávislost, během níž působil též jako vyslanec ve Francii, v Holandsku a ve Velké Británii. Po návratu domů se stal Washingtonovým viceprezidentem a poté v pořadí druhým prezidentem Spojených států. Napsal řadu významných politických spisů; nejproslulejší je Ústava státu Massachusetts, která platí dodnes. Autor sestavil Adamsův životopis na základě jeho deníků a bohaté korespondence. Kniha se stala bestsellerem a podařilo se jí tak znovu vrátit Adamse na výsluní zájmu. Vzhledem k tomu, že nejde o suchopárně podanou historii, ale o čtení téměř dobrodružné, zaujme jistě i českého čtenáře.... celý text
From Alexander von Humboldt to Charles and Anne Lindbergh, these are stories of people of great vision and daring whose achievements continue to inspire us today, brilliantly told by master historian David McCullough. The bestselling author of Truman and John Adams, David McCullough has written profiles of exceptional men and women past and present who have not only shaped the course of history or changed how we see the world but whose stories express much that is timeless about the human condition. Here are Alexander von Humboldt, whose epic explorations of South America surpassed the Lewis and Clark expedition; Harriet Beecher Stowe, “the little woman who made the big war”; Frederic Remington; the extraordinary Louis Agassiz of Harvard; Charles and Anne Lindbergh, and their fellow long-distance pilots Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Beryl Markham; Harry Caudill, the Kentucky lawyer who awakened the nation to the tragedy of Appalachia; and David Plowden, a present-day photographer of vanishing America. Different as they are from each other, McCullough’s subjects have in common a rare vitality and sense of purpose. These are brave companions: to each other, to David McCullough, and to the reader, for with rare storytelling ability McCullough brings us into the times they knew and their very uncommon lives.
The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and distinguished historian.The life of Harry S. Truman is one of the greatest of American stories, filled with vivid characters—Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Eleanor Roosevelt, Bess Wallace Truman, George Marshall, Joe McCarthy, and Dean Acheson—and dramatic events. In this riveting biography, acclaimed historian David McCullough not only captures the man—a more complex, informed, and determined man than ever before imagined—but also the turbulent times in which he rose, boldly, to meet unprecedented challenges. The last president to serve as a living link between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Truman’s story spans the raw world of the Missouri frontier, World War I, the powerful Pendergast machine of Kansas City, the legendary Whistle-Stop Campaign of 1948, and the decisions to drop the atomic bomb, confront Stalin at Potsdam, send troops to Korea, and fire General MacArthur. Drawing on newly discovered archival material and extensive interviews with Truman’s own family, friends, and Washington colleagues, McCullough tells the deeply moving story of the seemingly ordinary “man from Missouri” who was perhaps the most courageous president in our history.
