Editing Stephen E. Ambrose (section)

===Writings===
Ambrose's earliest works concerned the [[American Civil War]]. He wrote biographies of the generals [[Emory Upton]] and [[Henry Halleck]], the first of which was based on his dissertation.<ref name="Ind">M. R. D. Foote, [https://web.archive.org/web/20080527223132/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/stephen-ambrose-613999.html "Stephen Ambrose: Historian and author of ''Band of Brothers'',"] ''The Independent'', October 14, 2002, accessed May 27, 2010.</ref>

Early in his career, Ambrose was mentored by [[World War II]] historian [[Forrest Pogue]].<ref>Art Jester. Ambrose Installs New Faith in Some Old Heroes. ''[[Lexington Herald-Leader]]''. November 9, 1997.</ref><ref>Gwendolyn Thompkins. Ambrose to Leave Historic Legacy: UNO Prof in Colin Powell's Camp. ''[[Times-Picayune]]''. April 30, 1995.</ref> In 1964, Ambrose took a position at [[Johns Hopkins University|Johns Hopkins]] as the Associate Editor of the ''Eisenhower Papers'', a project aimed at organizing, cataloging and publishing Eisenhower's principal papers. From this work and discussions with Eisenhower emerged an article critical of [[Cornelius Ryan]]'s ''The Last Battle'', which had depicted Eisenhower as politically naîve, when at the end of World War II he allowed Soviet forces to take Berlin, thus shaping the [[Cold War]] that followed.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ambrose |first1=Stephen E. |title=Refighting the Last Battle: The Pitfalls of Popular History |journal=The Wisconsin Magazine of History |date=1966 |volume=49 |issue=4 |pages=294–301 |jstor=4634174 |url=http://content.wisconsinhistory.org/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/wmh&CISOPTR=23706&CISOSHOW=23639&REC=1 }}</ref> Ambrose expanded this into a book, ''Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe'' (1967).<ref name=hnn126705>{{cite web |last1=Rives |first1=Timothy D. |title=Ambrose and Eisenhower: A View from the Stacks in Abilene |url=http://www.hnn.us/article/126705 |website=History News Network |access-date=March 21, 2014 |archive-date=January 16, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140116191749/http://www.hnn.us/article/126705 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Ambrose was aided in the book's writing by comments and notes provided by Eisenhower, who read a draft of the book.<ref name=hnn126705/>

In 1964, Ambrose was commissioned to write the official biography of the former president and five-star general [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]].<ref name=hnn126705/> This resulted in a book on Eisenhower's war years, ''The Supreme Commander'' (1970), and a two-volume full biography (published in 1983 and 1984), which are considered "the standard" on the subject.<ref>Jim Newton, [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-may-09-la-ca-stephen-ambrose-20100509-story.html "Books & Ideas: Stephen Ambrose's troubling Eisenhower record,"] ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', May 9, 2010, accessed May 26, 2010. "His work on Eisenhower is penetrating and readable, lively, balanced and insightful. Indeed, these efforts have long stood alongside Fred Greenstein's ''[[The Hidden-Hand Presidency]]'' as the standards against which other Eisenhower scholarship is judged."</ref> Regarding the first volume, Gordon Harrison, writing for ''The New York Times'', proclaimed, "It is Mr. Ambrose's special triumph that he has been able to fight through the memoranda, the directives, plans, reports, and official self-serving pieties of the World War II establishment to uncover the idiosyncratic people at its center."<ref>Harrison, Gordon, [https://nytimes.com/books/98/11/22/specials/ambrose-supreme.html "The Making of a General and How It Came About"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140913064939/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/22/specials/ambrose-supreme.html |date=September 13, 2014 }}, ''The New York Times'', October 4, 1970.</ref> Ambrose also wrote a three-volume biography of [[Richard Nixon]]. Although Ambrose was a strong critic of Nixon, the biography was considered fair and just regarding [[Nixon's presidency]].<ref>[[Richard John Neuhaus|Neuhaus, Richard J.]] [https://archive.today/20120728174424/http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/nixon--the-education-of-a-politician-1913-1962--by-stephen-e--ambrose-7319 ''"Nixon: The Education of a Politician 1913-1962, by Stephen E. Ambrose"'' (book review)], ''[[Commentary magazine]]'', August 1987. "''Nixon'' is competently, sometimes brightly, written, and one gets the impression that Ambrose is striving, above all, to be assiduously fair."</ref><ref>[[R. W. Apple Jr.|Apple, R.W., Jr.]], [https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/22/specials/ambrose-nixon2.html "Beyond Damnation or Defense: The Middle Years"], ''The New York Times'', November 12, 1989. Retrieved June 9, 2018.</ref>

A visit to a reunion of [[Easy Company]] veterans in 1988 prompted Ambrose to collect their stories, turning them into [[Band of Brothers (book)|''Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest'' (1992)]]. ''D-Day'' (1994), built upon additional oral histories, presented the battle from the view points of individual soldiers and became his first best seller. A reviewer for the ''[[Journal of Military History]]'' commended ''D-Day'' as the "most comprehensive discussion" of the sea, air, and land operations that coalesced on that day.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Minniear |first1=Steven S. |last2=Love |first2=Robert W. |title=Review of D-Day June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II.; Over Lord: General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical Air Power in World War II.; The Year of D-Day: The 1944 Diary of Admiral Sir Bertram I. Ramsay., Robert W. Love, Jr.; D-Day 1944 |journal=The Journal of Military History |date=1996 |volume=60 |issue=1 |pages=186–188 |doi=10.2307/2944480 |jstor=2944480 }}</ref> [[Christopher Lehmann-Haupt]], writing for ''The New York Times'', proclaimed that "Reading this history, you can understand why for so many of its participants, despite all the death surrounding them, life revealed itself in that moment at that place."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Lehmann-Haupt |first1=Christopher |title=Books of The Times; Putting a Human Face On One Shattering Day |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/06/books/books-of-the-times-putting-a-human-face-on-one-shattering-day.html |work=The New York Times |date=June 6, 1994 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230822005116/https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/06/books/books-of-the-times-putting-a-human-face-on-one-shattering-day.html |archive-date= August 22, 2023 }}</ref> Ambrose's ''[[Citizen Soldiers]]'', which describes battles fought in northwest Europe from D-Day through the end of the war in Europe, utilized, again, extensive oral histories. ''Citizen Soldiers'' became a best seller, appearing on the ''New York Times'' best sellers lists for both hardcover and paperback editions in the same week. During the same week, in September 1998, ''D-Day'' and ''Undaunted Courage'', Ambrose's 1996 book on [[Meriwether Lewis]] and the Corps of Discovery, appeared on the best seller list, also.<ref>"Best Seller", ''New York Times Book Review'', September 20, 1998, p. BR38 and BR40.</ref> He also wrote ''The Victors'' (1998), a distillation of material from other books detailing Eisenhower's wartime experiences and connections to the common soldier, and ''[[The Wild Blue]]'', that looks at World War II aviation largely through the experiences of [[George McGovern]], who commanded a [[B-24]] crew that flew numerous missions over Germany. His other major works include ''[[Undaunted Courage]]'' about the [[Lewis and Clark Expedition]] and ''[[Nothing Like It in the World]]'' about the construction of the [[First transcontinental railroad|Pacific Railroad]]. His final book, ''[[This Vast Land]]'', a historical novel about the Lewis & Clark expedition written for young readers, was published posthumously in 2003.

Ambrose's most popular single work was ''Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West'' (1996), which stayed on the ''New York Times'' best seller list for a combined, hardcover and paperback, 126 weeks.<ref>"Best Seller", ''New York Times Book Review'', March 23, 1997, p. BR26, and "Best Seller", ''New York Times Book Review'', January 17, 1999, p. BR32</ref> Ambrose consolidated research on the [[Corps of Discovery]]'s expedition conducted in the previous thirty years and "synthesized it skillfully to enrich our understanding and appreciation of this grand epic", according to [[Alvin M. Josephy, Jr.]], who reviewed the book for ''The New York Times''.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Josephy |first1=Alvin M. |title=Giants in the Earth |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/bsp/undaunted.html |work=The New York Times |date=March 10, 1996 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230822005115/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/bsp/undaunted.html |archive-date= August 22, 2023 }}</ref> [[Ken Burns]], who produced and directed a [[PBS]] documentary on Lewis & Clark declared that Ambrose "takes one of the great, but also one of the most superficially considered, stories in American history and breathes fresh life into it."<ref>Simon & Schuster, Books [http://books.simonandschuster.com/Undaunted-Courage/Stephen-E-Ambrose/9780684726974 Retrieved March 6, 2014]{{Dead link|date=June 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=no }}</ref>

In addition to 27 self-authored books, Ambrose co-authored, edited, and contributed to many more and was a frequent contributor to magazines such as [[American Heritage (magazine)|''American Heritage'']].<ref>{{cite web|title=List of essays by Stephen Ambrose|url=http://www.americanheritage.com/users/stephen-e-ambrose|access-date=January 14, 2014}}</ref> He, also, reviewed the works of other historians in the ''[[Journal of Southern History]]'', ''[[Military Affairs]]'', ''[[American Historical Review]]'', ''[[The Journal of American History]]'', and ''[[Foreign Affairs]]''. He served as a contributing editor to ''[[MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History]]'', also.<ref name=confessore2001>[[Nicholas Confessore]], "Selling Private Ryan," ''[[The American Prospect]]'', September 24 – October 8, 2001, p. 21-27.</ref>