The Corner

Conservative History, cont., cont.

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Perhaps I’ve missed it, but doesn’t David McCollough deserve a mention as an important – and prolific – writer of American history? I’ve thoroughly enjoyed several of his books without sensing a political bias of any kind.

Yep. Again, I don’t think McCullough is conservative in any NR sense. But he’s also responsible for the popular revival of two semi-forgotten presidents, Harry Truman and John Adams. Truman was a true anti-Communist cold warrior, also a Democrat who would not have meshed well with today’s liberals; Adams was arguably our most conservative founding father. Whatever his own politics, McCullough has had a kind of conservative influence on our country’s understanding of itself.

John J. Miller, the national correspondent for National Review and host of its Great Books podcast, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.
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