Good evening, every saturday night throughout the summer booktv is putting on several hours of a wellknown author. Kind of our twist on binge watching. Tonights featured author s historian David Mccullough the author of a dozen books including bestselling histories on the american revolution, the invention of manned spaceflight the settlement of the Northwest Territory and the creation of the brooklyn bridge. He is a two time winner both Pulitzer Prize and National Book award and appeared on booktv and cspan over 75 times. Coming up over the next several hours we will show you some of those programs. First up in 1992 he appeared on cspans book not programmed to talk about his biography of president harry truman. The book won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and hope to change the view of the truman presidency. Here is David Mccullough from 1992. David mccullough, and your last chapter called citizen Truman Truman had held to the idea of the mythical roman heroes cincinnatus. Whats that
Programs. In 1982 he appeared on book notes to talk about his biography of president truman it won the Pulitzer Prize for biography and to help change the view of the truman presidency. Here he is from 1992. Cspan you start off by saying as far back as he could remember truman held onto the mythical roman heroes. What is that all about . The mythical hero who left in time of war with the great general and was victorious and renounced all of his power and returned to the farm. Thats a theme the country was founded on. If you are at the capital with the great painting of George Washington turning over his powers as commanderinchief of the Continental Army to congress the symbols earth all throughout that painting because they believe this is what democracy entailed that any citizen should be called upon at any time to serve b ultheir country in any capacity and the power belong to the people and would bepo returned to those who held it. He like to say i never forget who i was, where i ca
I wont president ial history because the presidency is especially built around who everybody pressured into it. Its important that everyone understand him and the presidency. But i think the biographies are alienating in the ways that the visual presentations and the way that they are written. So i really wanted the reader to feel as if they had never read a president ial biography. That they had everything they needed the beginning of the book to feel as though they were the experts. So that was part of it. I really did think think a lott my reader and the other part was thought washington has been called by president ial editors to edit the paper called him an vanilla wants to my face. [laughter] they are too much fun. Thats why the fighters survived. But the thing is he is, you can break him out and it can be interesting but you have to have fun with him. I think that its a whole different thing. But a lot of it is the way that i organize the material in my head when i was trying to
She was close to being broken by the time she went to the white house. Female this is the earliest existing house. They lived here through the 1830s and 1840s. Male she was educated and she had taught school. Female eliza would read to him in this shop while he worked making suits for the men of town. Female the north and the south fought over the occupation of greeneville all through the civil war. It changed hands over 26 times. Female andrew and eliza did purchase slaves. So they did have domestic help. Female it was used as a hospital. It was used as a place to stay, and it was basically destroyed. Female eliza being ill with tuberculosis wasnt able to get out much. Female eliza received many gifts that she brought home with her. Female this is the room she returned to after their years in the white house. Male shes just obscure, as she probably wouldve wanted it. But shes who he needed. end video clip Abraham Lincolns assassination, just weeks after his second inaugural shocked a
Up next on the presidency, a talk about the marital and Political Partnership between james and dolly madison. We hear from the Vice President for museum programs, and curator for montpelier, she discusses their early lives, their marriage, and how Dolley Madisons political skills bolster the career of James Madison. Hello, again. Is the sound good . Ok. Im not going to introduce myself. [laughter] i will just kind of start talking. What i am planning to do today is to talk about james and Dolley Madisons lives before they were james and Dolley Madison. Then consider their partnership and how it worked to both of their great advantage, because of it being such a wonderful partnership. So these are the Gilbert Stuart portraits of james and dolley painted when james was secretary of state. Its actually my favorite portraits of the two of them, i think they capture the sort of sense of personality that i see in them. And they have, i think, in large measure sort of created images that we