By Chris Langlois (Chrisdfw) (12.239.81.247) on Sunday, October 13, 2002 - 10:19 pm:

Historian Stephen Ambrose Dead at 66


Oct 13, 2002
By BRETT MARTEL

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Stephen E. Ambrose, a once-obscure history professor catapulted to prominence by his best-selling books that made aging World War II veterans hometown heroes again, died Sunday of lung cancer. He was 66.

Family members were with Ambrose, a longtime smoker who was diagnosed in April, when he died at a Bay St. Louis, Miss., hospital, said his son, Hugh.

At the National D-Day Museum, which Ambrose founded, his portrait was placed near the entrance and a sign noted his death. Guests were invited to write messages to the Ambrose family on museum postcards.

"He had a knack in his writing for making you feel like he was sitting right there talking to you," said Tom Gordon, a P-38 reconnaissance pilot in World War II, who was visiting the museum from St. Louis.

"Steve Ambrose was one of the truly great men I have known," former presidential candidate and Sen. George McGovern said. "He had a passion for America and for the soldiers who defended it."

Douglas Brinkley, a former student of Ambrose's who followed him as director of the University of New Orleans' Eisenhower Center, said Ambrose was "the great populist historian of America.

"He didn't write for intellectuals, he wrote for everyday people," Brinkley said.

Some in academia didn't take Ambrose seriously, which is why, his supporters say, jealousy ran rampant when Ambrose's name became a fixture on best-seller lists. Some colleagues say that was what led to accusations in early 2002 that Ambrose plagiarized several passages in a handful of books. The passages lacked quotation marks, but were footnoted, which other historians called inadequate.

Ambrose apologized for careless editing but otherwise stood by his work.

"I always thought plagiarism meant using other people's words and ideas, pretending they were your own and profiting from it. I do not do that, have never done that and never will," he wrote in a newspaper editorial.

Ambrose spent the last six months of his life in a flurry of writing. His last book, "To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian," which he called his love song to his country, is set for release Nov. 19.

For much of his career, Ambrose was a little-known history professor. He burst onto the best-seller list less than a decade ago with his 1994 book "D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II."

Based in large part on interviews with veterans, the book recounted the chaotic, bloody beach invasions of Normandy from the American soldier's perspective.

"He was saying, 'There's all this obsession with high command, but the real story is these citizen soldiers who still live in every town and hamlet in the United States,'" Brinkley said.

With unadorned but lively prose, Ambrose continued to captivate readers as he churned out history books at an industrious pace, publishing more than 30, including a half-dozen more best sellers such as "Citizen Soldiers" and "The Wild Blue."

He "combined high standards of scholarship with the capacity to make history come alive for a lay audience," Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur Schlesinger said.

While best known for his World War II books and as the founder of the National D-Day Museum, Ambrose wrote about numerous aspects of American history. Other books addressed former Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, the Transcontinental Railroad and the Lewis and Clark expedition of the American West.

"His great gift was that he refused to allow people to think history was boring," said Brinkley, who also collaborated on books with Ambrose. "He was always grabbing people by their lapels and saying, 'Listen to this. Isn't this fascinating?'"

Ambrose, who called himself a hero worshipper, said in a recent interview that his focus on World War II developed from working on his Eisenhower biography and his memory of GI's returning home from World War II when he was 10 years old.

"I thought the returning veterans were giants who had saved the world from barbarism. I still think so," he said.

For the most part, war veterans were eager to help Ambrose and entrusted artifacts they saved from World War II to the D-Day Museum. The old soldiers seemed to relate well to the author, a plain-speaking man who got to the point and wasn't afraid to mix in a few curse words for emphasis.

When Ambrose learned he had cancer, he said the likely terminal diagnosis was in some respects liberating because "you can do whatever the hell you want. Who's going to criticize you? And if they do, what the hell do you care?"

By the time he became ill, Ambrose's snowballing success had grown into a dynamic family industry that ranged from top-dollar lectures to movie consulting and even historical tours run by one of his sons.

Ambrose's film work included consulting roles in Steven Spielberg's World War II blockbuster, "Saving Private Ryan," and on the World War II documentary, "Price for Peace," also directed by Spielberg.


(AP) Author and historian Stephen Ambrose kisses Laura Bush's hand as he greets her during a...
Full Image

In addition, Spielberg and "Private Ryan" star Tom Hanks turned Ambrose's best-selling book "Band of Brothers" into a cable miniseries.

Ambrose was born Jan. 10, 1936, a doctor's son from Whitewater, Wis. He was for much of his career a ponytail-wearing liberal who once quit a teaching job at Kansas State University in protest over a campus visit by Nixon during the bombings of Laos and Cambodia.

As a young professor, Ambrose counted himself among the New Left professors who taught what was wrong with America, criticizing the treatment of
American Indians, U.S. motives for the Mexican-American war and neglect of the environment. But he wasn't always a left-wing academic. He played football for the University of Wisconsin and related his affection for the sport to his fascination with battlefield strategy.

Ambrose spoke out against America's involvement in the Vietnam War, yet he focused his research on presidents and the military at a time when such topics were increasingly regarded by his colleagues as old-fashioned.

Ambrose's cancer diagnosis prompted him to drop a World War II project about the Pacific and begin the autobiographical book due out next month. The book in many ways embodied Ambrose's transformation from left-wing demonstrator to super-patriot.

"I want to tell all the things that are right about America," Ambrose said in a May interview with The Associated Press.

Ambrose, who spent most of his teaching career at the University of New Orleans, founded the D-Day Museum to exhibit artifacts entrusted to him by veterans he had interviewed. It initially was meant for the university campus but turned into a $30 million exhibit in a converted downtown warehouse.

In an interview earlier this month with The Times-Picayune, Ambrose said he was inspired to continue writing by Ulysses S. Grant, who wrote his memoirs through the pain of throat cancer.

"Dying is so damn complicated," he said.

Hugh Ambrose said his father "fought cancer as he did all things: with passion, with dignity, with generosity and without complaint."

He said those wondering how they should honor his father should "take a moment to thank one of America's veterans."

Stephen Ambrose also is survived by his wife, Moira, brothers Harry and Bill, and children Andy, Barry, Grace and Stephenie.


http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20021014/D7ML1ORO0.html

By Melissa Clay (Melissa2800) (66.166.47.71) on Monday, October 14, 2002 - 08:53 am:

Thanks for posting this article, Chris. What a great man! He will be greatly missed. Rest in Peace
Melissa

By cias (Cias) (208.148.113.102) on Monday, October 14, 2002 - 02:33 pm:

In an era when many of our actors and their products reflect unearned ego and overpayment for productions lacking in merit, he gave us a story that did have merit and thanks to Speilberg and Hanks presented us with new and underused actors who reflected how young and new the BoB civilian soldiers were when they signed on. He helped bring closure to many of the vets by getting them to tell about events they had held inside for years. He reminded America that although many of our politicians are not worth trusting that we still have real heroes and that it' s long overdue that we honor ourselves by showing them the honor and respect they are due. If the vets memories were not faultless due to time and some other errors were made, it caused others to get involved and speak up, thus causing more things to be learned.
Mr. Ambrose collected, edited and served as a catalyst. More than the so-called high class historians who write for each other, he wrote for the veterans and he wrote for Americans primarily but for all the world, for if you can have heroes in one country, you can have them in others- just look around you. The teaching of American history in our schools has long disgracefully omitted many important events.
In the long run he gave us back a part of ourselves(integrity and nobility) and set us on the path to understand even more.
He left a challenge for us to learn from the veterans while we can and to use that knowledge as part of our own musete bags to make this country and world as good as possible.
Stephen, your work is done. You did well. I hope we will live up to the challenge you left us.
Gary

By Marigold Papa (Marigold) (203.170.2.80) on Thursday, October 17, 2002 - 09:59 am:

Amen...

gold

By Ilja Buschman (Bobandluzfan) (212.129.207.209) on Saturday, October 19, 2002 - 06:00 am:

it was really strange but a week ago i thought about when Mr. Ambrose would die. It was really strange myself because why would i think about it?! I didnot even know he had cancer. And now he had died its a really strange feeling. I just want to thank Mr. Ambrose for what he did for the veterans of WW2. GOOD JOB!

By homefront41 (Homefront41) (198.81.26.142) on Saturday, October 19, 2002 - 01:31 pm:

Check out your local listings for C-Span today. The Memorial Service for Stephen Ambrose will be repeated a few times. 8:00 p.m. Eastern and again at 11:30 p.m. Easter -- it runs approximately 1 1/2 hrs. BK

http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/fullschedule.csp

For our overseas friends, I believe that C-Span offers transcripts of remarks made at events like this. Check back on this website in about a week or so.

Please visit a sponsor and help keep this site free!