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David McCullough’s first book, The Johnstown Flood (1968), told how the South Fork Dam above Johnstown, Pennsylvania, gave way on 31 May 1889. In the course of it he noticed that one man presumed dead, Leroy Temple, had survived, and the official death toll was lowered to 2,208. He had come to history from magazines, after jobs at Sports Illustrated, the United States Information Agency and American Heritage. He went on to win two Pulitzer Prizes, for Truman and John Adams, and two National Book Awards, to narrate Ken Burns’s The Civil War and to host American Experience from 1988 to 1999. Much of the work was typed on an old Royal typewriter in an eight-by-ten-foot shed behind his house in West Tisbury, on Martha’s Vineyard. The ten writers below share his belief that history is a story about people; several of them question whose story he told.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Narrative history · American biography · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
If you love David McCullough, start with Barbara W. Tuchman, who won two Pulitzer Prizes without ever taking a graduate degree in history, and Ron Chernow, whose Alexander Hamilton (2004) inspired the musical. For the same founding era told from inside Monticello’s enslaved family, read Annette Gordon-Reed. Below are seven more, from an 1847 account of the Oregon Trail to a Finnish historian’s answer to The Pioneers.
10 authors like David McCullough
Where to start if you loved David McCullough
If you loved 1776, read Simon Schama.
Rough Crossings (2005): the same war from Britain’s side and from the side of the enslaved.
If you loved John Adams, read Annette Gordon-Reed.
The Hemingses of Monticello (2008): the founding generation from inside Jefferson’s house.
If you loved The Great Bridge, read Erik Larson.
The Devil in the White City (2003): building the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.
If you want history built from character, read Barbara W. Tuchman.
The Guns of August (1962): the first month of the First World War.
If you want more David McCullough, go back to the start.
Read The Johnstown Flood (1968), then The Path Between the Seas (1977), Truman (1992), John Adams (2001) and The Wright Brothers (2015).
Frequently asked questions about authors like David McCullough
Who writes like David McCullough?
Barbara W. Tuchman, Ron Chernow and Candice Millard for narrative history and biography; Laura Hillenbrand and Erik Larson for single stories told at a novel’s pace.
Which David McCullough book should I read first?
John Adams (2001) or 1776 (2005); or his first book, The Johnstown Flood (1968).
Does David McCullough have a new book?
No. He died on 7 August 2022, aged 89. His last book was The Pioneers (2019).
Why was The Pioneers criticised?
Reviewing it in The New York Times, the Harvard historian Joyce E. Chaplin said it adopts the settlers’ prejudiced language about ‘savages’ and ‘wilderness’ and calls the Ohio country ‘unsettled’ when people lived there.
What should I read after John Adams?
Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton (2004) or Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello (2008).
What prizes did David McCullough win?
Pulitzer Prizes for Truman (1993) and John Adams (2002), National Book Awards for The Path Between the Seas (1978) and Mornings on Horseback (1982), and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006.
Sources
- David McCullough — Wikipedia
- McCullough's new book on pioneers' history draws criticism — History News Network (AP)
- David McCullough, chronicler of the American experience, dies at 89 — Vineyard Gazette
- Johnstown Flood — Wikipedia
List last reviewed 31 October 2026.
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