The bestselling author of Truman and John
Adams, David McCullough has written profiles of
exceptional men and women past and present who have not only
shaped the course of history or changed how we see the world
but whose stories express much that is timeless about the
human condition.
Here are Alexander von Humboldt, whose
epic explorations of South America surpassed the Lewis and
Clark expedition; Harriet Beecher Stowe, "the little woman
who made the big war"; Frederic Remington; the extraordinary
Louis Agassiz of Harvard; Charles and Anne Lindbergh, and
their fellow long-distance pilots Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
and Beryl Markham; Harry Caudill, the Kentucky lawyer who
awakened the nation to the tragedy of Appalachia; and David
Plowden, a present-day photographer of vanishing America.
Different as they are from each other, McCullough's
subjects have in common a rare vitality and sense of
purpose. These are brave companions: to each other, to David
McCullough, and to the reader, for with rare storytelling
ability McCullough brings us into the times they knew and
their very uncommon lives.