“To me history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn’t just part of our civic responsibility. To me it’s an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is.”

-David McCullough in a conversation with former Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities Bruce Cole in 2003.  At this event, Mr. McCullough also promoted the social and cultural value of libraries and the liberal arts. An appreciation increasingly rare in our age.