Posted on 04/26/2010 6:38:19 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Was one of America's most revered popular historians fabricating his own material? That's the explosive charge now levied at Stephen Ambrose, author of numerous bestselling military and presidential histories. The author of "D-Day" and "Band of Brothers" died in 2002, but several authorities have recently questioned the writer's accounts of his research for "Supreme Commander," a massive two-volume biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower. At a minimum, Ambrose's critics say, he had vastly exaggerated the amount of time he spent interviewing the former president; and at worst, they suggest, he simply made up long stretches of the book.
The U.K. Guardian reported over the weekend that it appears unlikely that Ambrose spent "hundreds and hundreds" of hours conducting interviews and research with Eisenhower's guidance as he worked on the project between 1964 and 1969, the year Eisenhower died. "I think five hours is a generous estimation of the actual time they spent together," Tim Rives, deputy director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, told the British paper. "I personally would push it back to less than two or three."
Rives discovered the discrepancy as the Eisenhower library was preparing to mount an exhibition on Ambrose's relationship with Eisenhower. First there was a letter from Ambrose — then a professor at Johns Hopkins University — that requested an interview with Eisenhower for a biography, a petition that contradicts Ambrose's frequent claim that Eisenhower's former executive assistant had contacted Ambrose to pen the president's life story after the assistant had read one of Ambrose's Civil War histories. Digging further, Rives found that seven interview sessions cited in the footnotes of "Supreme Commander" could not have occurred — he says Eisenhower was either meeting with other people at the times indicated or actually travelling to another part of the country. ..
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
He should have took up golf. Ike enjoyed playing , and I’m sure he could talk and hit a good shot at the same time.
He’s not around to defend himself.
In the literary world making it up is right up there with stealing it.
He is probably scum because libs Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are. They cashed in on WW2 and they hated Bush.
Ambrose’s stuff is OK. He’s a far cry from David McCollough.
From what I know about him, he only went so far to the left as to oppose the Vietnam War. Aside from that, he wrote about brave men who fought hard for our country. He wrote about patriots in glowing terms, not smears, like Hanks.
“I think five hours is a generous estimation of the actual time they spent together,” Tim Rives, deputy director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library, told the British paper. “I personally would push it back to less than two or three.”
Cripes...Ike spent more time than that looking for his ball at the foot of his tree in Augusta...
“less than two or three hours”
Well, THAT’s convincing...sounds a little pissy to me.
Colonel, USAFR
Well, he was a good fabricator, anyway.
He was dead to me when he supported clinton during impeachment. Wasn’t he also accused of plagerism ?
Yes he was. Didn’t rise to the Doris Goodwin (giving LBJ a hummer) level.
I think it was a push back from "hundreds and hundreds" to two or three hours, not from five hours to two or three.
I had enjoyed his work, and yeah, he was a raging lib. But I also enjoyed "Band of Brothers" and "Saving Private Ryan" too, and Hanks and Spielberg are as liberal as they come.
I used to like Tom Hanks before he became an outspoken liberal, same for Spielberg. Now, I can't stand listening to either of them. I cannot separate them from their politics, because they have not separated their business from their politics. I dislike it, it seemed simpler when they allowed me to ignore it.
That woman makes me sick to my stomach.
off topic a bit, or maybe not..
HBO has been running a 10-part historical piece (7 parts have shown) on The Pacific and the Marines and their many bloody battles in WW2.
There may well be some things best left to the imagination as far as the images of war portrayed in this one. a spielberg/ hanks production.
Even Laz woundn’t hit that.
Back in 1992, when I moved to DC, I brought along 42 boxes of books, most on WWII.
Ambrose is not even in the top ten list of good historical writers. He may have been a little more prolific than some but I think much of his writing leans toward a juvenile style.
Are you kidding? Ambrose despised anyone not aligned with liberalism. He was a known liar and he made his students write his books while he took all of the money. McCollough is a fair historian.
LOL...poor Laz. He has a virtual rep...even I got that one!
Ambrose always struck me as being quite dogmatic on certain issues. Nevertheless he was as enjoyable as any historian and more enjoyable than most. Of course, now that he’s dead he’s an easy target.
The truth will come out eventually.
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