David McCullough

Pulitzer-winning historian whose books shaped Larry H. Miller in Driven. After reading McCullough’s biography of John Adams, Miller declared Adams a kindred spirit — “His story is my story” — and marked passages in his copy, including Adams’s late-life line (“work hard, conscience is neat and easy… hoping to do a ‘little good’”) and McCullough’s own observation that “through all his life Adams would be happiest when there was clear purpose to his days,” which Miller read as a description of himself. Miller credits 1776 and John Adams (both McCullough) with making “John Adams and history come alive,” and the book recounts McCullough trading a signed copy of 1776 with Gordon B. Hinckley — McCullough lamenting that history was no longer required for graduation at many universities.

Context: David McCullough (1933–2022) was an American historian and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner (Truman, John Adams), also author of 1776, The Wright Brothers, and The Path Between the Seas, and a long-time narrator known for accessible, narrative-driven popular history.

Where this appears

• Driven — the biography of Larry H. Miller cites McCullough’s John Adams and 1776 repeatedly as touchstones that made Miller call Adams a hero (“His story is my story”).