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
Returned to the farm. Thats a theme that this country was founded on. If you go up to the rotunda in the capital and you look at the great painting of the tremble of George Washington turning over his powers as commanderinchief and the Continental Army to the congress, the cincinnatus symbols are all do that painting because the Founding Fathers really believe this is what democracy entails. It meant that citizenship met any citizen should be called, could be called upon any time to serve his country or her country and any capacity including the greatest power. In the power belong to the people, therefore, power would be returned by those who held it for a time. Truman liked to say i try never to forget who i was, where he came from, and where would go back to. Thats the cincinnatus Team Obviously but it also shows that he knows who he was. He knew who he was and he was proud of who he was and the return to independence after he left the office of the presidency in 1953 was his way of
Clifton thank you, andy. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, truman scholars. To be here. I am honored to have been asked. Honored to serve on the board. I have to tell you im a little bit stunned. I was 19 your desk i was 19 years old with my mother in independence, missouri when the first truman scholarships were awarded in 1977. I was in college and i was sort of in all of being in that group. As my mother told me i should be. [laughter] clifton, allut it, of these young people are doing a lot better in college that you. Re are [laughter] the panels have been fantastic. This is a great way to spend the afternoon. Some have been talking about my grandfathers leadership style, his outlook on life, things i found out about when i was very young. My grandfather came to stay in new york city and he got dawn, wentrack of for a walk, and grabbed as many newspapers as he could find. My brother and i were the first ones down one morning. He was behind the newspapers and we thought we would tipt
Bess trumans letters to harry truman. As of last month, clifton is the board secretary for the Harry S Truman scholarship foundation. This is a role that has been vacant since the 1990s since his mother retired from our board. Clifton thank you for joining , our board and thank you for being here today. [applause] mr. Truman thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I am honored to be here. I am honored to serve on the board. I have to tell you a little bit stunned. Was 19 years old i was with my mother in independence when the first truman scholarships were awarded in 1977. I was in college and i was involved being in that group. As my mother told me i should be. [laughter] clifton,he put it was all these young people are doing a lot better in college then you are. [laughter] it isare interesting some of the things of the panel has been talking about. This is a great way to spend the afternoon. A couple of things weve been talking about is my grandfathers leadership style, things i learned and
To the previously mentioned december 1941. For me the book couldnt come at a better time. See the breakin librarys next special exhibition is called the secrets of World War Two and it opens on april 2nd. Its a collection of hundreds of artifacts from museums and private collections. Never before seen together in order to tell compelling stories of Technological Advancement creative problem solving and incredible human persistence under the backdrop of the worlds. Just a most destructive war in history. I quickly dug into craigs book to refresh my memory on the end of the war and to gain insight about what was going on around the world and those final few months. What i quickly found was a history book that read like a novel a book that covered the war and what soldiers were encountering just as much as a book that covered what was happening the homefront and abroad what average citizens were seeing and doing and even wearing it is a fascinating look into that era of our history. While