--- title: 10 Questions for David McCullough | TIME description: Historian David McCullough talks about his new book The Greater Journey and how the French influenced a generation of ambitious Americans canonical: https://time.com/video/9E3Dy0k7/ og:title: 10 Questions for David McCullough og:description: Historian David McCullough talks about his new book The Greater Journey and how the French influenced a generation of ambitious Americans og:url: https://time.com/video/9E3Dy0k7/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/9E3Dy0k7/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 10 Questions for David McCullough twitter:description: Historian David McCullough talks about his new book The Greater Journey and how the French influenced a generation of ambitious Americans twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/9E3Dy0k7/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # 10 Questions for David McCullough > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: 10 Questions for David McCullough [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for David McCullough](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/9E3Dy0k7.m3u8) (5:52)  _Published 2011-06-10. Historian David McCullough talks about his new book The Greater Journey and how the French influenced a generation of ambitious Americans_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:14 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Scientist Kara McCullough Crowned Miss USA 2017](/video/6qb8FMQx/) ### Scientist Kara McCullough Crowned Miss USA 2017 [Kimberly McCullough Blogs About Her 'Tragic' Miscarriage](/video/BvVNHYSO/) ### Kimberly McCullough Blogs About Her 'Tragic' Miscarriage [10 Questions for David Stern](/video/1KTlsntq/) ### 10 Questions for David Stern --- ## Transcript Hi, I'm Belinda Luscombe. I'm an editor at large at Time Magazine. Today's ten question answerer is David McCullough, the author of nine books. His newest is called The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Now your new book is about, a bunch of Americans who move to Paris. And they were a mix of professions, largely artists writers. The effect it had on them and thus, I guess the effect it had on America, it seems like a, a sort of a strange subject considering our history. What made you think of it? Well, I'm drawn to it because it's a big period Of the experience of Americans in Europe and in Paris, in particular about which very little had been done. And it's the period of 1830 to 1900. We know a good deal about the time when Franklin Adams and Jefferson were all in Paris and we've heard more than a great Deal, about the 1920s and 30s. The Hemingway Fitzgerald Gertrude Stein time. And my feeling was that this, period brought to France for a very specific kind of ambition. A group of Americans, who in many ways are among the most interesting and, and important figures in American life in that per, in that span of time. And I also feel very strongly that history ought to be seen as a great deal more than just politics and the military. This was a chance for me to illustrate that with the lives of these individual people. Who was your favorite character from the book? Augusta Saint Gardens was one of my favorite characters that I've ever written about in my writing life. Infinately interesting man. Complicated. Immensely talented, and important. An immigrant shoemaker's son was put to work at age 13. Street kid here in New York, who felt he had talent that could be, could be something. And he was determined to excel. They all were. That they're ambitious to excel, I think, is the common ingredient in the outlook of these young people. Remember, there were no schools of art, no art museums here, no schools of architecture. If you wanted to become an architect, there was no place you could study architecture, so you went to Paris. Samuel Morris, he was one of the guys that fascinated me. How did he go from portrait painter when he went to Paris to the guy who invented like, the single line telegraph and the code? Well, I don't think in that day people saw that they had to necessarily belong to one category. The fact that, that Morris was a painter and a very gifted painter, a brilliant painter. Did not mean that he couldn't have other ideas. And while he was in Paris, he got the idea for the telegraph. Now a man like Charles Sumner brought back another kind of an idea. He brought back the realization for him that we in America treated black people they way we did largely because of what we'd been taught. That treating black people, people, as equals was part of the natural order of things, because he saw it demonstrated in how the French students treated black students at the Surbon where he was taking courses of all kinds. And that, that changed our history because Sumner, who was only a young lawyer then, decided to devote his life to politics and to able the abolitionist movement be, became the most powerful voice for abolition in the United States Senate. So if that, if the book were only about that one man's one experience in Paris and how it mushroomed into a larger effect on the country, that would have made the point. But I wanted to make the point. In a variety of ways, because I believe so strongly that history is more than just soldiers, and politicians. Do you ever wish you stayed at Sports Illustrated? No. Never? No, I loved being a timing I worked at architectural form, which is no longer being published. And I worked at Time. I worked at three different places. I got wonderful training, made great friends. I learned a lot about writing, learned a lot about self editing and which is a real point of it all, learning to edit yourself. But I was ready to move on, and when President Kennedy was elected and he, called on people to do something for their country I took it very much to heart and went to Washington to work with the U. S. Information Agency under Edward R. Murrow and that was, that was very exciting. And I learned a great deal there of a different kind. Now from a point of view of the present. We look back, we look at history and we think you know, often in a sort of child like way. How could people have possibly owned [ UNKNOWN ], how could that? Yes. That was the thing. How could we have thought it was okay to not educate with. Yes. What do you think. Our. The people. The people that will come after us will back after us. And say. How. What where they thinking? How could they have done this? How could they. [ INAUDIBLE ] Have spend so much time their lives. Sitting, watching, television. [ LAUGH ] You mean, they spent seven hours a day watching that? That is a really good answer, it's not what I was expecting. David McCullough thank you so much for coming and seeing us today. Thank you very much, I've hugely enjoyed it, I truly have. 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