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
Serve on the committee that chose truman for the award of biography 1993 and the ceremonies i first got to meet him briefly and come to admire his work and i know all of you do as well the lecture and historian the narrator of distinguished most historical series a recipient of the National Book foundation distinguished contribution and twice received the National Book award the most recent book is john adams. Other books include the johnstown flood warnings on horseback and truman so on behalf of laura bush and the library of congress and all readers everywhere please welcome david mccullough. [applause] thank you. What a warm welcome and thank you for your introduction. Im thrilled to be here and to take part and honored to take part with this historic and marvelous event. What a thrilling day this is to see thousands of people here on capitol hill the american acropolis right at the heart of the greatest libraries of the world. And to see it all with thousands of people out there to
Cspan why wouldnt the government at that time have protections for him . Guest why wouldnt the government have a pension. There were for pensions for nobody else and not a penchant for the present in effect he had very little money. He had to borrow money quite secretly which dean acheson cosigned to pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown and it doesnt mean he didnt have any money. He did have money but he needed cash to cover all the expenses coming out of the white house. When he got home in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his autobiography, his memoirs which no other president had ever done except for herbert hoover. Hoovers time in office was much briefer than was trumans presidency and covered far more tumultuous history so to undertake the 2volume memoir was a very major ambitious task and then he build his library. There had been a previous president ial library, Franklin Roosevelt library at hyde park established after roosevelt had d
Assassination and a number of president s were already assassinated, why wouldnt the government have protections from him . There were pensions for army officers, everybody else but no pension for president s. In fact he had very little money. He had to borrow some money secretly, which dean addison cosigned. To pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown and doesnt mean he didnt have any money. He did have money but you need cash to cover all the expenses of moving out of the white house. And when he got home in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his autobiography, it is memoirs which no other president had ever done except for Herbert Hoover but hoovers time in office was much briefer than trumans and trumans presidency covered far more tumultuous history and hoovers had so to undertake the 2 volume memoir was a very major ambitious task. And then he built his library. Now, there had been a previous president ial library. Franklin Roosevelt Library
From our archives, with Pulitzer Prize winning historian David Mccullough. He has appeared on booktv more than 50 times. All of the programs youre about to see can be viewed in their entirety by visiting our website, booktv. Org, using the search function at the top of the page. First, in 1992 on the book notes Program David mccullough discussed his biography of president harry truman. It was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for biography and was instrumental in changing attitudes about the truman presidency. Here is a portion of that interview. The attempted assassination, a number of president s of been assassinated, why wouldnt the government have protections . Guest just wasnt. Why would there be a pension . Pension for everybody else but opens and for president , he had very little money. He had to borrow some money quite secretly, which dean addison cosigned to pay for the move back home. This is not wellknown it doesnt mean he didnt have any money, he did have money but needed some ca