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Americans at War
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - mostly sloppy and uniformed with a few good bits
Ambrose writes in a mostly accessible style which is not a bad thing, but this book is a mish mash of different magazine pieces that have virtually nothing in common and are quite uneven in quality. Further, some of his work is just pure opinion based on almost no real scholarship, (his arguments about the bombing of japan or the cold war come to mind). For armchair historians who think they "know" alot about history, Ambrose is the man, unfortunately his unfaultering US boosterism which results in obvious, moth-worn and erroneous conclusions will not really appeal to anyone else.
Rating:  - An American Journey Across Mars' Stage
"Americans At War" is another of Stephen Ambrose's works in which he focuses on topics and heroes which have formed the bases of prior books. Through them he tells the story saga of the American scenes on Mars' stage. Although he occassionally gets down to the common soldier, sailor and airman, this book deals largely with the leaders, consistent with Ambrose's belief that nothing is inevitable. Things happen because people make them happen.
This book begins with the siege of Vicksburg, focusing largely on Ulysses S Grant. It continues with a very unflattering consideration of George Armstrong Custer. The sections on Dwight Eisenhower's relationship with George Patton and his role in the establishment of NATO make interesting reading. Ike is depicted as playing an indispensable role in laying a firm foundation for NATO, a role which I had not previously appreciated. The story of Douglas MacArthur also holds the readers interest.
I found the section on atrocities to be particularly interesting. Ambrose skillfully contrasts those, such as Lt. Calley, who broke under pressure, with others, such as Meriwether Lewis, who did not break.
The political leadership of FDR is examined for its failure to prepare America for World War II, before recovering in preparation for D-Day. Nixon's Christmas 1972 bombing of Hanoi is presented as being more directed at our reluctant South Vietnamese allies than our North Vietnamese enemies.
From individuals, Ambrose broadens the perspective to consider changes which World War II brought to Main Street America. His assessment of the Cold War, how it was fought, whether it was necessary, who won what and whether it was worth the cost lead the reader to make his own analysis. The conclusion on wars of the Twenty-First Century contain stimulating speculations, even though some of which were proven right and others wrong in the early phases War on Terrorism.
Throughout this fairly short book, Ambrose educates the readers and invites us to draw our own conclusions, without hesitating to share his conclusions with us. It is certainly a worthwhile read.
Rating:  - NOT THE BEST OF AMBROSE - BUT AN EXCELLENT READ!
While this may not be some of Ambrose's best work, it is never-the-less very good stuff. As one reviewer pointed out, Ambrose is not only a pretty good historian, but he is an excellent teller of stories. That is a good combination. Ambrose writes popular historical books. This is good. With this collection of writings, and the many others of which he is responsible for, he has brought history to the general public, in a readable form, and not just let it molder in academic land. This is a collection of Ambrose's writings. It is not his more popular fist person interviews. This is not a collection of essays, rather, it is little bits of this and that, addressing America's fighting men and women throughout the years. He has done well here. Recommend this one highly.
Rating: - Mediocre and very uneven collection of military articles
This isn't really a book, or even an essay collection. Instead, the publisher decided to put this out when Stephen Ambrose was at the height of his popularity. It's a collection of magazine articles and essays that Ambrose wrote over the course of about 30 years. Some are long and detailed (the first piece, on the Vicksburg campaign, is about 40 pages long, and 30+ years old) while others are much shorter, and some are very new. One (the piece on The Christmas bombing in Viet Nam) is a reprint from MHQ, the article there in turn excerpted from Ambrose's bio of Nixon.
For those who aren't familiar with my opinions (which is probably most of you) Ambrose isn't my favorite historian by any stretch of the imagination. He started out a conventional narrative historian and biographer, but tended to run with whichever trend or fad the historical community thought was cool that year. Crazy Horse and Custer, for instance, spends some time comparing the toilet training practices of the societies the two men grew up in, with of course the expected inferiority of white society highlighted when compared with that of Native Americans. A few years later, oral history became the watchword, and Ambrose essentially hitched his horse to that wagon for the rest of his career, writing five or six books that relied on this medium most or all of the time.
Unfortunately, here we don't even get much oral history. These writings are mostly from the pre-oral history era of Ambrose's scholarship, and the newer pieces focus on historical pieces as opposed to oral history ones. As a result, we get opinions on such topics as George Custer (whom Ambrose despises; anyone who read Crazy Horse and Custer already knows that), MacArthur, Grant, Eisenhower (of course), and various other figures and topics from American military history. Some of the pieces are now essentially useless: one titled "The Cold War in Perspective" is so out of date now as to be a waste of one's time to read.
That leaves us with some Ambrose opinions (many of them uninformed, at best) and a few pieces of good writing that cover topics you could probably find other material on. I wouldn't recommend this book to much of anyone, though there are a few pieces in it that someone might find worthwhile.
Rating: - well-written history is always a pleasure.
Ambrose was a prolific military historian and this book is a re-print of 15 articles he had published in various magazines over the years. Most are short and full of insight. The only one that I found tedious was the first one, concerning the Battle of Vicksburg in the Civil War - an irony for me considering that I love to study the Civil War.
The articles about Eisenhower were particularly of interest to me - prior to this book I had a pretty low opinion of the man (a grandpa president who played golf throughout his 8 years of presidency) but Ambrose portrayed him in a different light and now I want to read more about him.
Very readable, very informative book. Well-written history is always a pleasure.
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