Stephen Ambrose

Guide Note

Stephen Ambrose was an American historian and writer, his books gained popularity with a general audience before his reputation was damaged by controversies regarding plagiarisms and historical inaccuracies.

Books

His most widely read works are of President Richard Nixon, biographies of President Dwight Eisenhower, and writings about World War II including Band of Brothers. Eisenhower chose him as his biographer because he was impressed with Ambrose's book Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff. His three volume biography of Nixon received good reviews.

Controversies

In 2002 The Weekly Standard published accusations that Stephen Ambrose had plagiarized passages from Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II. Ambrose and his publisher released an apology. Shortly afterwards investigators at Forbes found entire passages that had been plagiarized in six of his other books and plagiarism going back to his doctoral thesis in 1960.

Ambrose has been criticized by some historians for historical inaccuracies in his works. In 2001 the Sacramento Bee reported that 50 text pages and the captions for six photos had errors, misstatements, or material that could not be substantiated.

Fast Facts

  1. Born on January 10, 1936 in in Lovington, Illinois
  2. Raised primarily in Wisconsin
  3. Died on October 13, 2002 from Lung Cancer
  4. Mentored by World War II historian Forrest Pogue
  5. The 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers based on his book won 19 Emmy Awards including Outstanding Miniseries
  6. Founded the Eisenhower Center
  7. His son Hugh was his main research assistant
  8. Led an expedition that retraced the route of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Quotations

  1. "Eisenhower is my choice as the American of the 20th Century. Of all the men I've studied and written about, he is the brightest and the best." — Stephen Ambrose
  2. "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." — Stephen Ambrose

The Mahalo Top 7

  1. Wikipedia: Stephen Ambrose
  2. The Independent: Stephen Ambrose Obituary
  3. Forbes.com: "More Controversy For Stephen Ambrose" (January 9, 2002)  WARNING: Ad-heavy
  4. Amazon.com: Stephen Ambrose Merchandise
  5. BookRags: Stephen Ambrose Study Guide  WARNING: Paid subscription required after free preview period
  6. PBS: Biography of Steven Ambrose
  7. YouTube: World at War (Time: 7:18)

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