Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Boorstin dies

WASHINGTON — Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin, who wrote more than 20 history books over his long career, has died. He was 89.

Boorstin died early Saturday of pneumonia at Washington’s Sibley Hospital, said his wife, Ruth.

Renowned for his books, Boorstin was appointed librarian of Congress in 1974 by President Ford and spent 12 years as director of the world’s largest library.

He also won his Pulitzer in 1974, for "The Americans: The Democratic Experience."

The book was the third in Boorstin’s "The Americans" trilogy and followed "The Colonial Experience" and "The National Experience." All three sought to analyze the distinctive character of American institutions and culture.

Boorstin was born in Atlanta, reared in Tulsa, Okla., and educated at Harvard, Yale and Oxford universities. Before his appointment to the Library of Congress, he was director of the National Museum of History and Technology, senior historian of the Smithsonian Institution and a history professor at the University of Chicago for 25 years.