David McCullough’s latest work of history followed a spontaneous path, from a book about many Americans in Paris in the 20th century to the biography of just two.
“Among the people I turned up were the Wright brothers, and it just astonished me that they were even in France, let alone that it had an important part to play in their story,” says the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, a Boston resident visiting New York to promote “The Wright Brothers,” coming out this week. “Just reading about them, I realized how much more interesting they were, how much more compelling than I had any idea. And I thought, No, this is the book.’”
The 81-year-old McCullough was interviewed recently in a private study at the Yale Club in Manhattan, a favorite…