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David McCullough is Jack Anderson speaker

10/22/2009

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Historian David McCullough

Historian and writer David G. McCullough, who has profiled three American presidents and chronicled seminal events and achievements in American history, will give the Jack R. Anderson Distinguished Lecture at Miami's Farmer School of Business on Monday, Nov. 9. His talk is titled "Leadership and the History You Don't Know."

The talk, which is free of charge and open to the public, will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Millett Hall. No tickets are necessary.

McCullough, who has been called a “master of the art of narrative history,” received a Pulitzer Prize each for Truman and John Adams. He received National Book Awards for The Path Between the Seas (the building of the Panama Canal) and Mornings on Horseback (a profile of the young Theodore Roosevelt). John Adams was made into an HBO miniseries that aired in 2008. His latest work, published in 2005, is 1776.

Born and raised in Pittsburgh, McCullough earned a degree in English literature from Yale University, studying with John O’Hara, John Hersey, and Robert Penn Warren and getting to know playwright Thornton Wilder. Through apprenticeships with Time, Life, American Heritage, and the U.S. Information Agency, McCullough honed his research and writing skills and set himself on a career path.

Following graduation in 1955, McCullough worked as an editor and writer. He grew confident enough to attempt a writing project on his own, choosing to chronicle one of the worst flood disasters in the U.S., and working on the book in his spare time for three years. The Johnstown Flood was released in 1968 to high praise by critics, and the rest – as they say – is history.

In 2006, McCullough received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this country’s highest civilian award. He has been honored with more than 40 honorary degrees, two Francis Parkman prizes, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and New York Public Library’s Literary Lion Award.

The Farmer School’s Jack R. Anderson Distinguished Speaker Series brings individuals of world stature to the Oxford campus each year. This endowment, created in 2000 by Jack R. (Miami ‘47) and Rose-Marie Anderson, has supported lectures by Thomas Friedman, Colin Powell, Sandra Day O’Connor, Mikhail Gorbachev, Queen Noor, Rudolph Giuliani, and John Major.

For information, call 529-6114 or e-mail coopermt@muohio.edu.