Perspective

The Johnstown Flood is the book that launches David McCullough's remarkable career as popular historian, biographer, lecturer, teacher, and host of the popular PBS television series, "Smithsonian World." After The Johnstown Flood, McCullough goes on to write The Great Bridge, The Path Between the Seas, Mornings on Horseback, Brave Companions, John Adams, and Truman, winning the Francis Parkman Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Reward, and National Book Awards for history and for biography.

In researching The Johnstown Flood, McCullough uses three previously published books about the disaster, only one of which is a scholarly treatment. He also digs personally through voluminous records, diaries, letters, and a previously unknown transcript of an investigation conducted by the Pennsylvania Railroad. In addition, conducting research in the mid 1960s, he is able to interview the last remaining survivors of the tragedy. As a native of Pittsburgh, PA, the city downriver from...