Stephen Ambrose
65984
223950031
2008-07-06T17:37:19Z
156.34.72.133
/* Biography */ Fixing date.
{{Refimprove|date=June 2008}}
{{nofootnotes|article}}
[[Image:Stephen Ambrose.JPG|right|thumbnail|200px|Stephen Ambrose, at the [[2001 in film|2001]] premiere of ''[[Band of Brothers]]'']]
'''Stephen Edward Ambrose''' ([[January 10]], [[1936]] – [[October 13]], [[2002]]) was an American [[historian]] and [[biographer]] of [[U.S. President]]s [[Dwight Eisenhower]] and [[Richard M. Nixon]]. He received his [[Ph.D.]] in 1960 from the [[University of Wisconsin-Madison]].
==Biography==
Ambrose was born in [[Lovington, Illinois]], and reared in [[Whitewater, Wisconsin]], having graduated from [[Whitewater High School]]. His family also owned a farm in [[Lovington, Illinois]].
Ambrose served as a professor of [[history]] at several universities from [[1960]] until his retirement in [[1995]], having spent the bulk of his time at the [[University of New Orleans]]. For the academic year 1969-70, he was [[Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History]] at the [[Naval War College]]. In [[1970]], he was driven{{citation|April 2008}} from his position at [[Kansas State University]] in [[Manhattan, Kansas|Manhattan]] after having heckled President Nixon during a speech that the president gave on the KSU campus. He also taught at [[Louisiana State University]] in [[Baton Rouge]].
Early in his career, Ambrose was mentored by [[World War II]] historian [[Forrest Pogue]]. He was the author of several bestselling books about the war, including ''[[D-Day (book)|D-Day]]'', ''[[Citizen Soldiers]]'' and ''[[The Victors (book)|The Victors]].'' Other major books include ''[[Undaunted Courage]]'', about [[Lewis and Clark Expedition|Lewis and Clark]], and ''[[Nothing Like It in the World]]'', about the construction of the [[First Transcontinental Railroad (North America)|Transcontinental Railroad]]. He was the founder of the [[Eisenhower Center]] and President of the [[National World War II Museum]] in [[New Orleans, Louisiana]]. He was the [[military]] adviser on the movie ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'' and was an executive producer on [[Band of Brothers|the television mini-series]] that was based on his book, ''[[Band of Brothers (book)|Band of Brothers.]]''
Eisenhower chose Ambrose as his [[biography|biographer]] after admiring his work on ''Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff'', which was based on his doctoral dissertation. The resulting Eisenhower biographies were generally enthusiastic, but contained many criticisms of the former commander in chief.
Ambrose also wrote a highly regarded three-volume biography of Richard Nixon, also generally positive, but his ''[[Band of Brothers]]'' ([[1993 in literature|1993]]) and ''D-Day'' ([[1994 in literature|1994]]), about the lives and fates of individual soldiers in the World War II invasion, catapulted him out of the ranks of academic history and into mainstream American culture. The mini-series 'Band of Brothers' (2001) lionized American troops and helped sustain the fresh interest in WWII that was stimulated by the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994, and the 60th anniversary of [[D-Day]] in 2004.
Ambrose has received criticism from American veterans. Veterans of [[C-47 Skytrain|troop carrier units]] that transported paratroopers in the [[American airborne landings in Normandy]] have severely criticized Ambrose for portraying them as unqualified and craven in several of his works, including ''Band of Brothers '' and ''D-Day'', and for characterizing them as "cranks" when they asked that he change the passages.<ref name="wc">[http://warchronicle.com/correcting_the_record/NEPTUNE_airborne.htm An Open Letter to the Airborne Community] January, 17 2003</ref> Mark Bando, a published historian of the 101st Airborne in World War II, maintains a Web site ("Trigger Time") that while often praising Ambrose, also notes numerous discrepancies and some apparent fabrications, many of which have disturbed other veterans of the 101st.
It is said that Ambrose organized his entire family into a sort of "history factory" and began turning out popular books of history like ''[[The Wild Blue]]''. In 2002, Ambrose was accused of plagiarizing several passages which he footnoted but did not enclose in the required quotation marks.<ref name="nyt">[http://www.lclark.edu/~levinger/auxiliary_stuff/Ambrose_plagiarism.html As Historian's Fame Grows, So Does Attention to Sources] January 11, 2002</ref>
Ambrose also appeared as a historian in the landmark television history of World War II, ''[[The World at War]]''.
In [[1995]], Ambrose urged that retired General [[Colin Powell]] seek the presidency. The historian said that he would back Powell on either major party ticket.{{Fact|date=April 2007}} Powell declined to seek the presidency.
Ambrose, a longtime smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer in April [[2002]]. The condition deteriorated rapidly, and six months after the diagnosis he died at the age of 66, leaving behind his wife Moira and children Andy, Barry and Hugh, Grace and Stephenie. Later that year, Ambrose was posthumously awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Medal for Distinguished Public Service from the [[Theodore Roosevelt Association]].{{Fact|date=April 2007}}
== Criticism==
=== Plagiarism ===
In 2002, Ambrose was found to have plagiarized several passages in his book ''The Wild Blue''. [[Fred Barnes]] in ''[[The Weekly Standard]]'' reported that Ambrose had taken passages from ''Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II'', by Thomas Childers. Ambrose and his publisher, [[Simon and Schuster]], released an apology as a result. Ambrose had only footnoted sources and did not enclose in direct quotes significant passages taken from Childers' book.<ref name="hnn">[http://hnn.us/articles/504.html How the Ambrose Story Developed] June 2002</ref><ref name="nyt" />
While Ambrose downplayed the incident, stating that only a few sentences in all of his numerous books were the work of other authors, [[Forbes]]' investigation of his work found similar cases of plagiarism involving entire passages in at least six books and found a similar pattern of plagiarism going all the way back to his doctoral thesis.<ref>[http://www.forbes.com/2002/05/10/0510ambrose.html Ambrose Problems Date Back To Ph.D. Thesis] May 10, 2002</ref>
He offered this defense to the ''[[New York Times]]'':
:"I tell stories. I don't discuss my documents. I discuss the story. It almost gets to the point where, how much is the reader going to take? I am not writing a Ph.D. dissertation."
:"I wish I had put the quotation marks in, but I didn't. I am not out there stealing other people's writings. If I am writing up a passage and it is a story I want to tell and this story fits and a part of it is from other people's writing, I just type it up that way and put it in a footnote. I just want to know where the hell it came from."
The "History News Network" web site of [[George Mason University]], however, in a web article entitled "How the Ambrose story developed", detailed seven of Ambrose works that had plagiarized at least 12 authors.<ref name="hnn" />
=== Inaccuracies ===
Ambrose was also accused of using shoddy research in his works. Historians claimed that ''Nothing Like it in the World'' contained significant errors. Reported by Matthew Barrows in the [[January 1]], [[2001]], edition of ''[[The Sacramento Bee]]'', they listed some 50 text pages and six photo captions in which Ambrose "erred, misstated the facts or used quotes that cannot be substantiated with facts". According to Barrows, Ambrose cited his son Hugh as the primary research assistant for the book and chose not to respond. On [[January 11]], [[2001]], [[Lloyd Grove]], in ''[[The Washington Post]]'' column "The Reliable Source," reported that a co-worker found a "serious historical error" in the same book and that "a chastened Ambrose" promised to correct the error in new editions.<ref>[http://www.b-26marauderarchive.org/MS/MS1741/MS1741.htm Stephen E. Ambrose WWII Sins] 2001</ref>
Ambrose also became the target of controversy in 1995 from [[U.S. Army Air Forces]] veterans who objected to his characterization of [[C-47]] pilots as untrained and incompetent in the Normandy invasion. A letter-writing campaign noted that Ambrose did not interview a single troop carrier pilot among the 1,642 participating in [[Operation Neptune]] nor consult official records, relying instead only on anecdotes of some paratroopers critical of the jumps. It also accused him of "reneging" on promises to correct the record before his death.<ref name="wc" />
A similar controversy ensued when Ambrose, in two separate accounts, implied cowardice by a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[coxswain]] of a landing craft during the landings at [[Omaha Beach]]. One writer claims that the first account, involving a Capt. Zappacosta from B Company, was apparently drawn from a writing by [[S.L.A. Marshall]]. <ref name="wc" /> The second of Ambrose's two accounts may have been drawn from the oral history of Sgt. J.R. Slaughter, D Company, 116th Infantry, 29th Division, who confirmed publicly that when his landing craft 100 yards from shore, the coxswain said he was going to lower the ramp and begin offloading, and only continued on to shore after another sergeant in the craft held a gun to the coxswain's head and ordered the coxswain to go in further. <ref> C-SPAN recording of Sgt Slaughter at the Eisenhower Center, New Orleans, May 1994 </ref>
==Published Works==
* ''[[Henry Wager Halleck|Halleck]]: Lincoln's Chief of Staff'' (1962)
* ''Duty, Honor, Country: A History of [[West Point]]'' (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1966)
* ''Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe'' (New York: W.W. Norton, 1967)
* ''The Supreme Commander: the War Years of General [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]]'' (New York: Doubleday, 1970)
* ''Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors'' (New York: Doubleday, 1975)
* ''Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment'' (New York: Doubleday, 1981)
* ''Eisenhower'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984)
* ''[[Pegasus Bridge]]: June 6, 1944'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985)
* ''[[Richard Nixon|Nixon]]'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991)
* ''Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992)
* ''[[D-Day]], June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II'' (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1994)
* ''Undaunted Courage: [[Meriwether Lewis]], [[Thomas Jefferson]], and the Opening of the American West'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996)
* ''Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 - May 7, 1945 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997)
* ''Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy since 1938'' (New York: Penguin Books, 1997)
* ''Americans at War'' (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1997)
* ''The Victors: Eisenhower and his Boys - The Men of World War II'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998)
* ''An epic American exploration: the friendship of [[Lewis and Clark]]'' by Stephen E. Ambrose. The [[James Ford Bell Lecture]], no. 36. [Minneapolis]: Associates of the James Ford Bell Library, 1998.
* ''Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999)
* ''Nothing Like it in the World: The Men who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000)
* ''The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who Flew the [[B-24]]s over Germany (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001)
* ''To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian'' (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002)
==Notes==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
{{nofootnotes|article}}
*[http://www.lclark.edu/~levinger/auxiliary_stuff/Ambrose_plagiarism.html ''New York Times'' article] on Ambrose's "borrowings" and "history factory"
*[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/character/bios/ambrose.html PBS biography of Ambrose]
*[http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article140010.ece Obituary] in [[The Independent]]
* {{imdb name|id=0024421|name=Stephen Ambrose}}
*[http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/a/stephen-e-ambrose/ Stephen E. Ambrose @ FantasticFiction.co.uk]
*[[WorldCat]] search of [http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3AStephen+Ambrose&qt=advanced works by Stephen Ambrose]
*[http://hnn.us/articles/504.html How the Ambrose story developed] listing the 12 books Ambrose plagiarized and the 7 works in which it appeared
*[http://www.b-26marauderarchive.org/MS/MS1741/MS1741.htm Stephen Ambrose: World War II sins] detailing controversy with the troop carrier veterans from their point of view
*[http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2002/0212/0212new4.cfm]Prespectives outlines Ambrose life in this obituary
<!-- Comment -->
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ambrose, Stephen}}
[[Category:1936 births]]
[[Category:2002 deaths]]
[[Category:Military historians]]
[[Category:American historians]]
[[Category:Historians of the American West]]
[[Category:Historians of the United States]]
[[Category:American military writers]]
[[Category:World War II historians]]
[[Category:People from New Orleans, Louisiana]]
[[Category:Wisconsin writers]]
[[Category:Illinois writers]]
[[Category:Lung cancer deaths]]
[[Category:University of Wisconsin-Madison alumni]]
[[Category:People from Decatur, Illinois]]
[[Category:Naval War College faculty]]
[[Category:Louisiana State University faculty]]
[[Category:People from Helena, Montana]]
[[Category:Dwight D. Eisenhower]]
[[da:Stephen Ambrose]]
[[de:Stephen Ambrose]]
[[es:Stephen Ambrose]]
[[fr:Stephen Ambrose]]
[[ko:스티븐 암브로스]]
[[it:Stephen Ambrose]]
[[nl:Stephen Ambrose]]
[[ja:スティーヴン・アンブローズ]]
[[no:Stephen Ambrose]]
[[pl:Stephen E. Ambrose]]
[[pt:Stephen E. Ambrose]]
[[sk:Stephen Ambrose]]
[[sv:Stephen Ambrose]]