For David McCullough, history is more than a subject in school. It is an ongoing story and a source for invaluable lessons.
McCullough, historian and author, spoke Monday night in Millett Hall about the importance of history. McCullough, author of 1776 and John Adams and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, spoke to students, faculty, staff and community members in his first visit to Miami University.
"History is human," McCullough said. "That is why it is so everlastingly interesting, so everlastingly puzzling and so everlastingly rewarding."
McCullough discussed the key points history has taught him.
"First, there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman," McCullough said. "Everyone of us has been shaped by somebody before we arrive at the position where we can say we are self made."
According to McCullough, these influences go beyond parenting.
"We also learn by the people we never knew," McCullough said. "We read books, poetry, fiction, ideas, stories and are shaped by that. Literature affects us far more than we know."
McCullough referenced great American leaders, including Theodore Roosevelt's love of Edward Arlington Robinson's poetry, as examples of influences.
McCullough also discussed the past as a term.
"There is no such thing as the past," McCullough said. "Nothing ever happened in the past. No one ever lived in the past. They lived in the present, their present. They didn't walk around saying, 'Isn't it pleasant living in the past?'"
McCullough, whose book 1776 dealt with the foundation of the United States, recognized the Founding Fathers' ignorance of their present as a past.
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"Just like we are locked in our present and do not know the future, they were too," McCullough said. "They were unable to see the future. There is no such thing as the foreseeable future."
By understanding the past was only someone else's present, McCullough hoped to portray another point.
"There was no simpler time," McCullough said. "Different, but not simpler. The complexities we live with today are, yes, indeed complex and not easy to adjust to. But, there were other complexities, events and developments which were equally puzzling in the past."
These lessons are only some examples for how history is important in everyday lives, according to McCullough.
"Why should anyone limit himself or herself to our little bit of biological time when the whole human experience is available to us?" McCullough said. "Through words, letters, motion pictures, art, photography, music, it is all there for us. And to deny ourselves that is to deny ourselves part of the enjoyment of living. It is part of the human experience to be interested in the human past."
Roger Jenkins, dean of the Farmer School of Business, introduced McCullough and highlighted his passion for human knowledge.
"He has chosen topics that fascinate them and has vibrantly brought alive such diverse events as the building of the Panama Canal and the devastation of the Johnstown flood," Jenkins said.
For McCullough, it is about a natural curiosity.
"I started out in journalism, and was taught who, what, where, when and why," McCullough said. "The most important of all is who. Who were those people? Who were those people who did something extraordinary? Who were those who rose above adversity and did something outstanding?"
McCullough left the crowd with final words of wisdom and advice.
"Read, read, read," McCullough said. "It's what I tell myself, it's what I tell my students, it's what I hope future generations will do. Keep digging, marinate yourself."
His lecture, "Leadership and the History You Don't Know," was sponsored by the Jack R. Anderson Distinguished Lectures Series and the Farmer School of Business and was free and open to the public.
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