In 1999, while in business school, I interned with the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA) at Point Reyes National Seashore, living in employee housing about 90 minutes from where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds, now considered one of the great horror films. That same year, Alan Spears joined NPCA, where he currently serves as resident historian and Senior Director of Cultural Resources.

As a supporter of NPCA and our National Park System, I receive National Parks Magazine (on paper, in the mail), and the Winter 2026 issue includes an article by Alan about the important role our National Parks have in sharing “the full, messy, complicated story of the founding” of the United States. Alan notes, “The complexity of our history is what makes it so compelling…”

In this brief post, another in the periodic “Brooks on Books” series (see, for example, “Recommendations on Recommending” and “What are You Reading?” and “Interested in Tennis?”), I focus on history and a book by the late historian David McCullough.

History Matters by David McCullough

Published in 2025 and co-authored by his daughter Dorie McCullough Lawson and his longtime research associate Michael Hill, this 168-page book includes speeches and essays by David McCullough that spotlight a selection of inspiring Americans along with the power of history to educate and guide us when making difficult decisions.

Years ago, I listened to the audiobook of McCullough’s 1776, and absorbed the reality that the concept of “easier times” or a “simpler past” is, as McCullough notes throughout his work, a “fiction.” History Matters includes a 1999 speech at the Library of Congress about George Washington in which McCullough observed, “There was no simpler time. I often think of those troops at night… You had to have a sense of purpose just to get through life… let alone in time of war.”

Of the first President of the United States, McCullough said:

“…Our gratitude to George Washington should be beyond measure and to have had that particular man with his integrity, his courage, his decency, his stability, his sense of duty to the common good, as our first president is almost miraculous.”

In writing his books and essays, McCullough dug deep into archives, reading widely from books, letters, and journals, in addition to studying maps, art, and literature. He regularly shared his view that one of the most “astute of all observers” in U.S. history was Abigail Adams, the wife of John Adams. She wrote of George Washington:

“He is polite with dignity, affable without familiarity, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, modest, wise, and good.”

In short, as McCullough added when quoting her, George Washington “was a good human being.”

Imagine the opposite of a George Washington: impolite, haughty, immodest, unwise, rash…

With respect to other Presidents, History Matters includes a contribution to a book about Harry Truman, in which McCullough wrote:

“…character counts in the presidency more than any other single quality. It is more important than how much the president knows… When the chips are down – and the chips are nearly always down in the presidency – how do you decide?”

My appreciation for David McCullough and his writing knows no bounds. The context and depth of his work remind us how having “a sense of history” makes us “less prone to hubris.” Life is hard enough as we struggle to control what we can. History, as a source of inspiration and wisdom, helps remind us of what matters, of how we achieve great things by working with others.