An Academic Autopsy

In May 1993 David McCullough, the Pulitzer-prize winning biographer of Harry Truman, warned the graduates of the University of New Hampshire that we are becoming "a nation of historical illiterates ...losing our past, losing our story." "To aspire to quality citizenship demands an understanding of our background," McCullough cautioned, adding that "Truman once said the only new thing in the world is the history you don't know."