Two new history books use the past to explain what’s important now

Summary

NPR’s Book of the Day — October 3, 2025

Episode: Two New History Books Use the Past to Explain What’s Important Now
Host: Chloe Veltman
Key Guests:

• Dorie McCullough Lawson (daughter of David McCullough, co-editor)
• Jon Meacham (historian, foreword author)
• Scott Ellsworth (author, professor)

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Overview

This episode delves into the relevance of history in contemporary life through two new books:

1. History Matters—a posthumous collection of David McCullough’s speeches, essays, and interviews, spotlighting his insights on why history remains essential.
2. Midnight on the Potomac by Scott Ellsworth—an exploration of the civil unrest and rebirth during the final throes of the Civil War, with new revelations about figures like John Wilkes Booth and Henry Highland Garnett.

The episode explores how a deeper understanding of America’s past can inform, inspire, and caution us in today’s divided times, challenging listeners to see the value and complexity in historical study.

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Segment 1: Why History Matters — The Legacy of David McCullough

Guests: Dorie McCullough Lawson & Jon Meacham
Interview by: Scott Simon
Starts: [01:29]

Main Points & Insights

• David McCullough’s Approach to History ([02:08]-[02:46]):
  • Dorie shares that her father’s primary themes were endless curiosity and a deep, consistent set of values, including “courage, respecting one another, devotion to truth, a loathing of hypocrisy, self-reliance, and—as he said—the power of simple goodness.”
• Discovering Themes in a Historian’s Work ([02:36]-[03:25]):
  • Dorie discovered her father’s “curiosity” and unwavering devotion to fundamental values as he grew.
  • Meacham echoes McCullough’s focus on “the perennial struggle of human beings to do the right thing, particularly when it’s not easy.”
  • Memorable quote:

    “His curiosity... and he also was the same person throughout his life, devoted to the old verities.”
    — Dorie McCullough Lawson [02:46]

• The Role of Luck in History ([04:04]-[05:25]):
  • Meacham references a McCullough essay on the significance of luck in history, including the “propitious fog in Brooklyn” that enabled Washington’s early success.
  • “There are factors beyond our control... what is essential is that human beings be equipped to overcome bad luck or take advantage of good luck.”
    — Jon Meacham [04:34]
• Reconciling Triumph & Tragedy in American History ([05:25]-[07:13]):
  • The U.S. is both a nation of achievement and of injustice (“productivity, but also slavery, imperialism”).
  • Meacham stresses looking at history not condescendingly, but “in the eye”:

    “By looking American history in the eye, we see what we got right and we see what we got wrong... We must seek the light, always aware that darkness can fall.”
    — Jon Meacham [06:06]

• History’s Relevance and the Myth of Simpler Times ([07:13]-[08:38]):
  • Both guests dismiss the idea of a “simpler time.” Meacham:

    “We do a disservice to history by acting as if there was a once upon a time where things were easier... it has always been a struggle between our worst instincts and our better angels.”
    — Jon Meacham [07:18]

• What Can History Offer Us Now? ([08:04]-[09:27]):
  • Dorie: History “teaches us how to behave... gives us a sense of proportion about our own time... intensifies our experience of being alive.”
  • Meacham: It’s a “source of inspiration”—if past Americans overcame immense challenge, so can we:

    “If the men and women who prevailed at Lexington and Concord and prevailed at Gettysburg and prevailed at Omaha Beach… if they could do it, then in our challenges, we can too.”
    — Jon Meacham [08:38]

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Segment 2: Midnight on the Potomac — Rethinking the Civil War’s End

Guest: Scott Ellsworth
Interview by: Scott Simon
Starts: [10:14]

Main Points & Insights

• A Personal Path to the Civil War ([11:23]-[12:20]):
  • Ellsworth recalls early education at "Robert E. Lee Elementary" in Tulsa, where the Civil War was taught as a “misunderstanding” among well-meaning white men, ignoring slavery and venerating Confederate leaders.
• Evolving Understanding of the Civil War ([12:20]-[13:16]):
  • Years of research led him to appreciate the Civil War as “the central, most important event in all of American history,” surpassing even the Revolution in its enduring relevance regarding American identity and democracy.
• John Wilkes Booth: Not the Villain You Think ([13:29]-[14:30]):
  • Contrary to the stereotype of Booth as a “second-rate actor” and “disturbed individual,” Ellsworth’s research shows Booth was an “absolute superstar of the American stage,” mobbed by fans and driving sold-out performances.
  • Booth’s prominence changed Ellsworth’s perspective and drew him deeper into Civil War history.
  • Notable quote:

    “Once I realized that our version of Booth the person was so wrong, I got interested in diving deeper into him...”
    — Scott Ellsworth [14:13]

• The Kidnapping Plot ([14:50]-[16:06]):
  • Evidence suggests Booth met with Confederate Secret Service agents, building a scheme not merely to kill Lincoln, but to kidnap him and use him as a bargaining chip to end the war—showcasing a previously overlooked dimension of Booth’s actions and connections.
• Unsung Figures: Henry Highland Garnett & Lois Adams ([16:06]-[17:48]):
  • Ellsworth spotlights Garnett, a Black minister and fugitive from slavery, who became the first African American to address Congress—marking progress in a city transformed by formerly enslaved people and activism for equal rights.
  • He also introduces Lois Adams, a pioneering female war correspondent, as an overlooked chronicler of the time.
• Parallels Between Then and Now ([17:48]-[19:03]):
  • Ellsworth draws direct comparisons between post-Civil War division and America’s current polarized landscape.

    “We have never been more divided in my lifetime than in the last eight or ten years... The only time we’d been so divided was during the Civil War era.”
    — Scott Ellsworth [18:05]

  • The book is meant to remind readers of past struggles that the country has endured—and to provide both context and hope in navigating present-day challenges.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Use of History in the Present
  • “History gives us a sense of proportion about our own time... it intensifies our experience of being alive.”
    — Dorie McCullough Lawson [08:08]
• On Facing the Past Honestly
  • “The central task of a biographer, of a historian, and yes, of a citizen is... not to look back at the past condescendingly, but to look it in the eye.”
    — Jon Meacham [06:06]
• On the Civil War’s Lasting Relevance
  • “This is a book about how we almost lost our country.”
    — Scott Ellsworth [17:48]
• On American Resilience
  • “If the men and women who prevailed at Lexington and Concord and prevailed at Gettysburg and prevailed at Omaha Beach... if they could do it, then in our challenges, we can too.”
    — Jon Meacham [08:38]

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Key Timestamps

• [01:29] Introduction to David McCullough and his impact
• [02:46] Dorie McCullough Lawson on themes in her father’s work
• [04:19] The importance of luck in history
• [05:25] Reconciling America’s triumphs and injustices
• [06:49] Re-examining history and optimism
• [08:08] What history can do for us today
• [10:14] Introduction to “Midnight on the Potomac”
• [11:41] Ellsworth discusses early lessons on the Civil War
• [13:29] Reframing John Wilkes Booth
• [14:50] The kidnapping plot and Booth’s motives
• [16:28] The story of Henry Highland Garnett
• [17:48] Parallels between Civil War era and today’s divisions

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Tone & Style

The conversation is deeply reflective yet engaging, blending scholarly insights with relatable personal anecdotes. The guests and hosts alike stress the importance of honest engagement with the past and urge listeners not to seek nostalgia but understanding—calling for both critical thinking and hope.

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Summary Takeaways

• Both books underscore the essential role of history—not as distant chronicle, but as a living tool for self-understanding, national reckoning, and civic inspiration.
• History is presented not as pure triumph or condemnation, but as a guide—offering both lessons and perspective in confusing or divided times.
• Listeners are encouraged to confront the nation’s past honestly, to reevaluate familiar stories, and to draw strength from those who have shaped history before us.

Transcript

[Chloe Veltman]

Welcome. You're listening to BOOK OF THE DAY from npr. I'm Chloe Veltman. Today we're looking at two history books that make a strong case for why learning about the past is so critical to our understanding about the world we're living in today. In a bit, we'll hear about the final throes of the American Civil War and how President Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, wasn't at all the man most of us think he was. But first, we have an interview about a posthumous collection of writings by the revered American historian David McCullough, McCullough's daughter, Dorie McCullough Lawson, who co edited the collection, and historian John Meacham, who wrote the foreword. Tell NPR's Scott Simon about McCullough's endless curiosity and his insistence on not looking back at the past condescendingly but rather looking it in the eye. That's ahead.

[Scott Simon]

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[Scott Ellsworth]

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[Dorie McCullough Lawson]

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Narrator/Host]

Until his death in 2022, this was the voice of American history.

[John Meacham]

Good Evening, I'm David McCullough and this is the first program in the American Experience.

[Narrator/Host]

David McCullough wrote huge best selling books that ranged from the Johnstown Flood to the Brooklyn Bridge and Panama Canal, John Adams, Teddy Roose and Harry Truman. He hosted the American Experience on PBS and narrated Ken Burns the Civil War.

[John Meacham]

The Civil War was fought in 10,000 places, from Valverde, New Mexico, and Tullahoma, Tennessee, to St. Albans, Vermont, and Fernandina on the Florida coast.

[Narrator/Host]

History Matters is a new book that collects some of David McCullough's speeches, interviews and essays in which he spoke of the importance of history and the joy he took in writing it. The book has been edited by his daughter, Dorie McCullough Lawson, and his longtime researcher Michael Hill, and has a foreword from the historian John Meacham. Dorie McCullough Lawson and John Meacham join us now. Thanks so much for being with us.

[Dorie McCullough Lawson]

Thank you.

[John Meacham]

Thank you.

[Narrator/Host]

Dorie, your father says in here he never knew the theme of a book, but discovered it while writing. Did you discover a theme in this collection while putting it together?

[Dorie McCullough Lawson]

I did. I think I discovered several themes. Number one would be his curiosity that he was interested in everything. Everyone took time to listen to people. And I also would say that an overall theme was that he was the same person throughout his life, and he was devoted to kind of the primary values, the old verities of courage, respecting one another, devotion to truth, a loathing of hypocrisy, self reliance, and, as he said, the power of simple goodness.

[Narrator/Host]

John Meacham, you say that David McCullough's writings tutored us in the art of being human. How so?

[John Meacham]

My sense. I encountered McCullough first, obviously, as a reader. I read the Johnstown Flood at an early age. And what you see in, I think, the canon of work is this perennial struggle of human beings to do the right thing, particularly when it's not easy. And I think that's a fundamental human task that he returned to again and again.

[Narrator/Host]

John Meacham, let me ask you about what I found to be an extraordinary essay in here. A commencement address at Providence College in 2018 is called the Importance of Luck, and it tells the story of a propitious fog in Brooklyn.

[John Meacham]

Yes, without that fog, we might not be having this conversation with these particular accents. They might be British history is contingent. The fog made Washington's early triumphs in the military phase of the Revolution possible. You know, geography, as Napoleon once said, is destiny. Another example of this would be the weather breaking on June 6, 1944, when there was only the slightest window for the Allied troops to cross the Channel and liberate a continent. There is this consistent reality in human affairs that there are factors beyond our control. And seems to me, and I think I learned a lot of this from David's work, what is remarkable and essential is that human beings be equipped to either overcome bad luck or take advantage of good luck.

[Narrator/Host]

I want to ask you both about something David McCullough wrote in an unpublished essay, 1990, called the Good Work of America, and I'm going to take pleasure in quoting it now. We are the people who built the Panama Canal and the Golden Gate Bridge, the Mount Wilson Observatory, the Library of Congress, Lincoln Center. We invented jazz in the General Hospital. Our productive power turned the tide of world history. I think you both know many people would now add, we are the people who supported slavery, imperialism and inequality. How do you reconcile those two views of this country?

[John Meacham]

You don't. And I would argue that the central task of a biographer, the central task of a historian, and yes, the central task of a citizen is not to, as Arthur Schlesinger once said, not to look back at the past condescendingly, but to look it in the eye. And by looking American history in the eye, we see what we got right and we see what we got wrong. Scott, as you enumerate, and we draw the lesson ideally that we must seek the light, always aware that darkness can fall.

[Dorie McCullough Lawson]

He believed that history, we needed to be looking at history and periods of history again and again and that we would reevaluate the way that we saw the past. He was an optimist and he said and writes in this book that he was a short term pessimist and a long term optimist. That is very accurate about the way that he saw the world.

[Narrator/Host]

He wrote. And this really got me thinking. There was no simpler time.

[John Meacham]

I believe that's true. I believe that we do a disservice to history by acting as if somehow there was a once upon a time where things were easier, where people were more inclined to do the right thing. It has always been a struggle between our worst instincts and what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature. And the remarkable thing about the American experience is that for all of our faults, for all of our vices, our better angels at critical hours have enabled us to create a more perfect union that people want to come to, not that people want to leave.

[Narrator/Host]

And I gotta put you both on the spot. What do you think history can do for us now?

[Dorie McCullough Lawson]

I would say that history teaches us how to behave and it reinforces what we believe in and what we stand for. Lessons of history are lessons in appreciation. What we have all is the result of other people's work, other people's creative energy and drive. History gives us a sense of proportion about our own time. Here and then there are the pleasures of history. It intensifies our experience of being alive.

[John Meacham]

I believe that it is a source of inspiration because a group of very flawed white men at the end of the 18th century managed to set us on a path, creating documents both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, our mission statement and our user's guide, if you will, that gave us a North Star, a goal to seek, a standard to try to meet. And if the men and women who prevailed at Lexington and Concord and prevailed at Gettysburg and prevailed at Omaha beach, if they could do it, then in the challenges of our time, we can too.

[Narrator/Host]

John Meacham and Dorie McCullough Lawson the new book of writings by David McCullough is History Matters. Thank you so much for being with us.

[John Meacham]

Thanks, Scott.

[Dorie McCullough Lawson]

Thank you.

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[Scott Ellsworth]

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[Chloe Veltman]

So much has been written about the American Civil War. You'd think there'd be nothing new to say about it. But in his new book, Midnight on the Potomac, the Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination and the Rebirth of America, scott Ellsworth explores little known corners of the story and destroys long held myths around the assassination of prison president Abraham Lincoln. And in so doing, the author helps draw a line between that complex period in this country's history and our own tumultuous times.

[Scott Simon]

What does history get wrong about the man who killed President Abraham Lincoln? Our next guest argues that John Wilkes Booth wasn't just a disturbed lone wolf, but was seen in his time as a charismatic genius of the American stage. He writes about Booth, Lincoln, and other key figures at the culmination of the Civil War and what those lessons can teach us in today's polarized political climate. Scott Ellsworth is a professor in Afro American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. His latest book is Midnight on the the Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination and the Rebirth of America. Scott welcome to Here and Now.

[Scott Ellsworth]

Thanks so much. I'm thrilled to be on the show.

[Scott Simon]

You've written that your fascination with the Civil War era began very young and I can relate to that. I was kind of a nerdy kid who loved going to historic sites and watching documentaries, too, although I did not become a professor. But I wonder, what was the story that you were told about the Civil War as a young young man?

[Scott Ellsworth]

Well, the story that I was told about the Civil War and incidentally at Robert E. Lee Elementary School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, you know that the war was a horrible event. It was a misunderstanding by sort of well meaning white men on both sides. It wasn't about slavery. Certainly our the namesake of our school, Robert E. Lee, was a revered figure and certainly the Confederate generals were held in high regard. And these were American heroes on Both sides of the war. And it was a terrible event, but one that we, you know, got through and then were able to heal afterwards.

[Scott Simon]

And how has your perception of that time in our history changed as you've gotten older and studied?

[Scott Ellsworth]

Well, it's changed and it's deepened in lots and lots of ways. And, you know, over the years, I've, you know, this is over the course of maybe 50 years, I've been reading about the Civil War, touring the battlefields, studying it. I worked at the Smithsonian for a decade and would go buy Civil War artifacts day by day. But, you know, the Civil War is, to this day, it remains the central, most important event in all of American history. And even more so than during the American Revolution, this is a time where what it was to be an American, what we believed, and who was going to be allowed to take part in this world's greatest experiment in democracy, these were in high relief. And there wasn't a family that wasn't affected by it.

[Scott Simon]

Now there have been, I'm sure, thousands of books written about the Civil War and about Lincoln. How did you go about writing and researching a book that covers so much familiar ground?

[Scott Ellsworth]

Well, it took some work. Sort of the way I got to it, in a way, was through John Wilkes Booth. And Booth wasn't at all like the version I had been taught. The version I'd been taught, and maybe you too, was that Booth was this second rate actor living in the shadow of his far more famous father and brother. Sort of a disturbed individual, kind of a prototype for a, you know, a Hinckley or Lee Harvey Oswald. It turns out that Booth was an absolute superstar of the American stage. He, he sells out theaters from New York and Boston to Indianapolis and Cleveland and Chicago and Washington, D.C. hundreds of people are turned away at his performances. You know, dozens of women stalk him outside of his dressing room, all of that. And, and once I realized that, that our version of Booth, the person was so wrong, I got interested in diving deeper into him and to try to figure out what made him tick.

[Scott Simon]

Yeah, it was really fascinating to read those details of his life. And one of the things I found most interesting was your description of the initial plot he appeared to be part of to kidnap President Lincoln. It just seems so implausible and it didn't obviously come to fruition. But what was the goal of that initial plot?

[Scott Ellsworth]

Well, you know, we're not entirely sure. I mean, there is strong evidence that Booth. We don't have a smoking gun, but we have a lot of smoke. And so there's strong evidence that Booth met with some Confederate Secret Service agents at the Parker House Hotel in Boston in the late summer of 1864. We know about a month later, he meets with Confederate Secret Service agents and spy agency people in Canada, in Montreal. And then three weeks after that, he. He goes down to Baltimore, his. His in. In his boyhood home of Maryland, and meets up with some high school buddies and tells them that he tried to get. Gets them to go ahead and join him in this plot to kidnap the President. He says he knows the President's schedule. He knows when. When Lincoln is going to be riding from the White House to the summer home and the old soldiers, the soldiers home and old. The District of Columbia. He says he knows how to transport a body across the Potomac River. And all this, well, this isn't anything that John Wilkes Booth, an actor, thought up on his own. And so I think the idea was to kidnap the President and to use him, you know, as a hostage to try to barter the end of the war, you know, with the people of the North.

[Scott Simon]

Now, the book isn't just about Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth. It also talks about some characters that are not as famous, including a black minister named Henry Highland Garnett, who had been born into slavery until his family escaped and he delivered what was apparently the first address in the US Capitol given by an African American. How did you come across his story?

[Scott Ellsworth]

You know, I had heard a little bit about Garnett, you know, growing in. In graduate school and in college and whatnot. But as I, as I dug into the story, one. One way I heard about him, as I discovered, at least I discovered for myself, other people had discovered her earlier. An amazing female war correspondent by the name of Lois Adams. Lois Adams was a widow, a single mom from Michigan. She became the Washington D.C. correspondent for some newspapers in Detroit. And there was a wonderful librarian who discovered her work and republished it. And she's one of the great journalists of the war. Nobody's ever heard of her. And she had written a long column about the time that Garnett spoke in the Capitol. And it was so powerful. And she was just so spot on that. That's one reason I put him in. He also represents a change that's happening. You know, Washington D.C. was fairly small at the beginning of the Civil war. You know, 40,000 escaped slaves, enslaved people moved to Washington during the war. They changed the nature of the city. And many of them are also pushing in an early version of the Civil rights movement, to have equal treatment. And Garnett appearing at the Capitol and speaking at the Capitol with this thunderous speech is a big moment in that journey.

[Scott Simon]

Now you begin your book with a note saying, this is a book about how we almost lost our country. You were talking earlier about what a seismic event this was, the Civil War. What parallels do you see between that time and today?

[Scott Ellsworth]

We have never been more divided in my lifetime than we have in the last eight or 10 years. And the only time in American history we had been so divided was, you know, during the Civil War era. So that drew me very much to writing about the era. We live in a time when it's very difficult for for people to view the other side as well, meaning human beings who have the future of the country very much in mind. There was very little freedom of speech in the south for years before the Civil War, so there were a lot of things in echoes that reminded me of it. And I wanted to remind us of the glories of some of our heroes and let us know that we have faced big struggles in the past and that we do have a track record of enduring some of them in the past, and we can build upon that and give us some confidence.

[Scott Simon]

Scott Ellsworth is the author of Midnight on the Potomac, the Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America. Scott, thanks so much for being with us.

[Scott Ellsworth]

Thank you.

[Chloe Veltman]

That's it for this week on NPR's Book of the Day. If you want more, you can sign up for our [e-mail] Newsletter Books Let us know what you think. You can write to [e-mail] I'm Chloe Veltman. The podcast is produced by Chloe Weiner and edited by Megan Sullivan. Our founding editor is Petra Meyer. The show elements for this week were produced and edited by Martin Patience, Samantha Balaban, Adriana Gallardo, Katie Klein, Ashley Brown, Matt Ozug, Catherine Welch, Samantha Raffleson, Shannon Rhodes, Andrew Craig, Todd Mundt and Ashley Locke. Yolanda Sangweni is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.

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