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The Course of Human Events
The 2003 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities
David McCullough
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eBook - ePub
The Course of Human Events
The 2003 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities
David McCullough
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About This Book
Forty years after his first book, David McCullough wrote and presented his speech, The Course of Human Events, in the 2003 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, in which he divulges his philosophy on writing, speaking, and history in his masterful storytelling style. In this Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, David McCullough draws on his personal experience as a historian to acknowledge the crucial importance of writing in history's enduring impact and influence, and he affirms the significance of history in teaching us about human nature through the ages.
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Storia mondialeWASHINGTON, D.C.
MAY 15, 2003
Dr. Cole, ladies and gentlemen, to be honored as I am tonight in the capital of our country, in the presence of my family and many old friends, is for me almost an out-of-body experience. Had someone told me forty years ago, as I began work on my first book, trying to figure out how to go about it, that I would one day be standing here, the recipient of such recognition, I would, I think, have been stopped dead in my tracks.
Iāve loved the work, all the way alongāthe research, the writing, the rewriting, so much that Iāve learned about the history of the nation and about human nature. I love the great libraries and archives where Iāve been privileged to work, and I treasure the friendships Iāve made with the librarians and archivists who have been so immensely helpful. Iāve been extremely fortunate in my subjects, I feel. The reward of the work has always been the work itself, and more so the longer Iāve been at it. And Iāve kept the most interesting company imaginable with people long gone. Some Iāve come to know better than many I know in real life, since in real life we donāt get to read other peopleās mail.
I have also been extremely fortunate in the tributes that have come my way. But this singular honor, the Jefferson Lecture, is for me a high point, and my gratitude could not be greater.
AMONG THE DARKEST TIMES in living memory was the early part of 1942āwhen Hitlerās armies were nearly to Moscow; when German submarines were sinking our oil tankers off the coasts of Florida and New Jersey, within sight of the beaches, and there was not a thing we could do about it; when half our navy had been destroyed at Pearl Harbor. We had scarcely any air force. Army recruits were drilling with wooden rifles. And there was no guarantee that the Nazi war machine could be stopped.
It was then, in 1942, that the classical scholar Edith Hamilton issued an expanded edition of her book, The Greek Way, in which, in the preface, she wrote the following:
I have felt while writing these new chapters a fresh realization of the refuge and strength the past can be to us in the troubled present. . . . Religion is the great stronghold for the untroubled vision of the eternal, but there are others too. We have many silent sanctuaries in which we can find breathing space to free ourselves from the personal, to rise above our harassed and perplexed minds and catch sight of values that are stable, which no selfish and timorous preoccupations can make waver, because they are the hard-won permanent possessions of humanity. . . .
When the world is storm-driven and the bad that happens and the worse that threatens are so urgent as to shut out everything else from view, then we need to know all the strong fortresses of the spirit which men have built through the ages.
In the Rotunda of the Capitol hangs a large painting of forty-seven men in a room. The scene is as familiar, as hallowed a moment in our history as any we have.
John Trumbullās Declaration of Independence [shown on the cover of this book] has been a main attraction on Capitol tours for a very long time, since 1826. It draws crowds continuously, as it should, every dayāfrom three to five million people a year. Itās probably been seen by more Americans than any painting everāand the scene as portrayed never took place.
Trumbull said it was meant to represent July 4, 1776, and thatās the popular understanding. But the Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4. The signing began on August 2, and continued through the year as absent delegates returned to Philadelphia. No formal signing ceremony ...