Award-Winning Popular Historian David McCullough Dies at 89

The time and care McCullough put into his works, some taking 10 years to complete, shone through to readers, who kept some of his books on best-selling lists for months. Their immense popularity even saw to it that some of them be adapted into HBO films, like Truman, starring Gary Sinise, and John Adams starring Paul Giamatti.

The written word wasn’t the only thing David McCullough had a talent for, though. His work as a narrator, with his steady, calming voice led many eager viewers through documentaries on some of America’s greatest historical moments, like the award-winning ’90s Ken Burns’ series, The Civil War, The American Experience, and Smithsonian World. And, in 2006, he was granted the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

When asked about his writing for an HBO documentary, he said “I think of writing history as an art form. And I’m striving to write a book that might—might— qualify as literature. I don’t want it just to be readable. I don’t want it just to be interesting. I want it to be something that moves the reader. Moves me.”

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