Brave Companions

In Brave Companions: Portraits in History, Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and historian David McCullough presents a series of nonfiction essays exploring the lives of a diverse assortment of historical figures, each one offering a distinct profile in courage. The brave men and women featured in these seventeen biographical sketches changed our collective understanding of the world and our place in it. In this volume, published by Prentice Hall in 1991, McCullough celebrates their accomplishments while underscoring their humanity, showing readers that, oftentimes,  ordinary folks do the most extraordinary things.

McCullough separates the book into five sections. The first, entitled "Phenomena," explores the contributions of three people whose daring and curiosity illuminated the human experience. German-born scientist, naturalist, and explorer Alexander von Humboldt undertakes an expedition to Latin America in 1799, where he offers the first truly modern scientific examination of life in the Americas. His work inspires Louis Agassiz, a scientist and educator who discovers the Humboldt Current, the ocean current that flows northward along the western edge of South America. Agassiz teaches at Harvard and promotes American education and scientific learning. Around this same time, American author Harriet Beecher Stowe utilizes her own education and abolitionist work to write the book Uncle Tom's Cabin. Upon publication, the novel changes the nation's attitudes toward slavery, eventually laying the groundwork for the Civil War. Though Stowe continues writing for the next three decades, nothing compares to her first novel, which is one of the first mainstream literary works to offer an unvarnished and unromanticized view of slavery in the United States.

The next portion of the book, "The Real West," delves into two major influences that shaped the American West. The first is not a biography of one person, but of a whole town—the town of Medora, North Dakota. Here, future president Theodore Roosevelt and frontiersman the Marquis de Mores live during the 1880s, two among many who go West to seek their fame and fortune. The second essay in this section is a tribute to American artist Frederic Remington, whose work seeks to preserve the Old West pioneered by Roosevelt, de Mores, the people of Medora, and all those like them.



In the section "Pioneers," McCullough looks at four different trailblazing constructions that revolutionized how people get from one place to another, ultimately closing the gaps that separated large portions of the world's population. "Steam Road to El Dorado" chronicles the building of the Panama Railway in the mid-nineteenth century and those who are central to its evolution. Engineer John A. Roebling and his son, Washington, play pivotal roles in the design of the Brooklyn Bridge ("The Builders"). The engineers leave a legacy that is not fully understood until the late 1960s, when, in "The Treasure from the Carpentry Shop," their original plans and drawings come to light. Early breakthroughs in aviation are the focus of "Long-Distance Vision," in which McCullough touches upon the groundbreaking work of aviators like Charles Lindbergh and Beryl Markham.

Unlike the other historical figures he profiles in Brave Companions, the four individuals featured in the section "Figures in a Landscape" are people the author has interviewed or personally knows. American author Conrad Richter, environmental activist Harry M. Caudill, British scientist Miriam Rothschild, and photographer David Plowden each enrich the world with their knowledge and creativity. Richter writes largely unsung novels of the American frontier. Caudill devotes his life to campaigning against Appalachian strip mining. Rothschild reintroduces species of wildflowers to the countryside and writes books about natural science. Plowden's lens captures the American heartland in all its complex glory.

In the final section of the book, "On We Go," McCullough reflects on four key moments in twentieth-century United States history. He pays homage to the city of Washington, D.C. He surveys a number of turning points that occur between the years 1936 and 1986. He shares a college commencement speech he gave in 1986, in which he encourages graduates to travel and embrace history. Finally, McCullough tackles the thorny subject of Congress, but not in a critical way—in a heartening one. In a speech he once gave to lawmakers, he urges them to understand the history of the institution of which they are a part and to never forget the founding ideals of the nation they represent.



The numerous subjects of Brave Companions could not be more unlike one another. They span different eras and generations, different experiences, and different industries and talents, and, at heart, a world of different ideas. Nevertheless, they unite in a common sense of purpose, a shared mission to discover, enlighten, and revel in the world we share. McCullough presents them as brave companions indeed—to one another, to society as a whole, and to our enduring understandings of history, identity, and our place in the grand scheme of things.