David Halberstam, 1934-2007
It was with sadness that I saw last night a bulletin that one of my favorite authors had died in a car accident. David Halberstam, writer of American history and sports, was the passenger in a car in Menlo Park, CA the was broad-sided by another.
Halberstam was a master story-teller who wrote “popular history” better than most. For me, he joins the likes of Stephen Ambrose, David McCullough, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, as writers of our day who could write history in an engaging and accessible fashion, rather than the dry, academic style that so many of us were used to in our school days.
I understand that he had one book already in the pipeline for this fall on the Korean War. It sounds as if it may already be complete, so we may yet get to enjoy one more good Halberstam.
He will be missed.