Two new history books use the past to explain what’s important now

NPR's Book of the Day

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Arts, Books

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

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Summary

Two new history books make a strong case for why learning about the past is critical to understanding the world today. First, History Matters is a posthumous collection of writings by American historian David McCullough. In today’s episode, co-editor Dorie McCullough Lawson and historian Jon Meacham tell NPR’s Scott Simon about McCullough’s endless curiosity. Then, in Midnight on the Potomac, Scott Ellsworth explores little-known corners of Civil War history. In today’s episode, he speaks with Here & Now’s Sarah McCammon about long-held myths about the period.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome, you're listening to Book of the Day from NPR. I'm Chloe Veltman. Today we're looking at two
0:07.6	history books that make a strong case for why learning about the past is so critical to our
0:12.5	understanding about the world we're living in today. In a bit, we'll hear about the final
0:17.0	throws of the American Civil War and how President Abraham Lincoln's assassin,
0:21.9	John Wilkes Booth, wasn't at all the man most of us think he was. But first we have an interview
0:27.1	about a posthumous collection of writings by the revered American historian David McCullough.
0:32.8	McCullough's daughter, Dory McCuller Lawson, who co-edited the collection, and historian John Meacham,
0:38.3	who wrote the forward, tell NPR's Scott Simon about McCullough's endless curiosity and his
0:44.0	insistence on not looking back at the past condescendingly, but rather looking it in the eye.
0:49.2	That's ahead.
0:53.6	You come to the New Yorker Radio Hour for conversations that go deeper with people you really want to hear from, whether it's Bruce Springsteen or Questlove or Olivia Rodriguez, Liz Cheney, or the godfather of artificial intelligence, Jeffrey Hinton, or some of my extraordinarily well-informed colleagues at The New Yorker.
1:13.3	So join us every week on the New Yorker Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts.
1:21.2	Until his death in 2022, this was the voice of American history.
1:27.4	Good evening. I'm David McCullough, and this is the first program in the American Experience.
1:32.4	David McCullough wrote huge bestselling books that range from the Johnstown flood to the Brooklyn Bridge and Panama Canal,
1:39.8	John Adams, Teddy Roosevelt, and Harry Truman.
1:43.0	He hosted the American Experience on PBS and narrated Ken Burns, the Civil War.
1:49.0	The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places, from Valverdi, New Mexico and Tallahoma, Tennessee,
1:56.0	to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast.
2:00.4	History Matters is a new book that collects some of David McCullough's speeches,
2:05.1	interviews, and essays in which he spoke of the importance of history and the joy he took in writing it.
2:11.8	The book has been edited by his daughter, Dore McCullough Lawson, and his longtime researcher, Michael Hill,
	...

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