David McCullough, who was known to millions as an award-winning, best-selling author and an appealing television host and narrator with a rare gift for recreating the great events and characters of America’s past, died on Sunday at his home in Hingham, Mass., southeast of Boston. He was 89.
The death was confirmed by his daughter Dorie Lawson. No specific cause was given.
Mr. McCullough won Pulitzer Prizes for two presidential biographies, “Truman” (1992) and “John Adams” (2001). He received National Book Awards for “The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal” (1977) and “Mornings on Horseback” (1981), about the young Theodore Roosevelt and his family.
Deep research and lively readability were hallmarks of his books, and so was their tendency to leap off the shelves. “Truman” topped The New York Times’s best-seller list for 43 weeks; “John Adams” was No. 1 in its first week and has since gone through dozens more printings.
His readers got a lot of work for their money: The Adams project took Mr. McCullough seven years, and “Truman” took him 10 (and when at last he showed his wife, Rosalee McCullough, the massive typescript, he said, she was amazed that it hadn’t taken longer). “The Great Bridge” (1972), his exhaustive account of the technology, personalities and politics involved in building the Brooklyn Bridge, was hailed as a monument in its own right. Yet there was hardly anything in his writing to suggest that he had ever staggered under the weight of his homework.
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