Stephen E. Ambrose – författare

**THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER**Foreword by Tom Hanks.  The book that inspired Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed TV series, and its sequel, Masters of the Air.   In Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose pays tribute to the men of Easy Company, a crack rifle company in the US Army. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the dangerous parachute landings on D-Day and their triumphant capture of Hitler’s ‘Eagle’s Nest’ in Berchtesgaden. Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company. Repeatedly sent on the toughest missions, these brave men fought, went hungry, froze and died in the service of their country. Celebrating the 25th anniversary since the original publication, this reissue contains a new foreword from Tom Hanks who was an executive producer on the award-winning HBO series.  A tale of heroic adventures and soul-shattering confrontations, Band of Brothers brings back to life, as only Stephen E. Ambrose can, the profound ties of brotherhood forged in the barracks and on the battlefields.  ‘History boldly told and elegantly written . . . Gripping’ Wall Street Journal  ‘Ambrose proves once again he is a masterful historian . . . spellbinding’ People

On the basis of 1,400 oral histories from the men who were there, bestselling author and World War II historian Stephen E. Ambrose reveals for the first time anywhere that the intricate plan for the invasion of France in June 1944 had to be abandoned before the first shot was fired. The true story of D-Day, as Ambrose relates it, is about the citizen soldiers - junior officers and enlisted men - taking the initiative to act on their own to break through Hitler's Atlantic Wall when they realised that nothing was as they had been told it would be. D-DAY is the brilliant, no holds barred, telling of the battles of Omaha and Utah beaches. Ambrose relives the epic victory of democracy on the most important day of the twentieth century.

'This was much more than a bunch of guys out on an exploring and collecting expedition. This was a military expedition into hostile territory'. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a pioneering voyage across the Great Plains and into the Rockies. It was completely uncharted territory; a wild, vast land ruled by the Indians. Charismatic and brave, Lewis was the perfect choice and he experienced the savage North American continent before any other white man. UNDAUNTED COURAGE is the tale of a hero, but it is also a tragedy. Lewis may have received a hero's welcome on his return to Washington in 1806, but his discoveries did not match the president's fantasies of sweeping, fertile plains ripe for the taking. Feeling the expedition had been a failure, Lewis took to drink and piled up debts. Full of colourful characters - Jefferson, the president obsessed with conquering the west; William Clark, the rugged frontiersman; Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition; Drouillard, the French-Indian hunter - this is one of the great adventure stories of all time and it shot to the top of the US bestseller charts. Drama, suspense, danger and diplomacy combine with romance and personal tragedy making UNDAUNTED COURAGE an outstanding work of scholarship and a thrilling adventure.

Since it first appeared in 1971, Rise to Globalism has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. The ninth edition of this classic survey, now updated through the administration of George W. Bush, offers a concise and informative overview of the evolution of American foreign policy from 1938 to the present, focusing on such pivotal events as World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, and 9/11. Examining everything from the Iran-Contra scandal to the rise of international terrorism, the authors analyze-in light of the enormous global power of the United States-how American economic aggressiveness, racism, and fear of Communism have shaped the nation's evolving foreign policy.

Behind this decision lay another. Whose forces would be the first to reach Berlin? General Dwight David Eisenhower, supreme commander of the British and American armies, chose to halt at the Elbe River and leave Berlin to the Red Army. Could he have beaten the Russians to Berlin? If so, why didn't he? If he had, would the Berlin question have arisen? Would Germany have been divided as it was? Would the Cold War have assumed a direction more favorable to the West? In a narrative of steady fascination, Stephen E. Ambrose describes both the political and the military aspects of the situation, sketches the key players, explains the alternatives, and considers the results. The result is a sharply focused light on an important question of the postwar world. This paperback edition features a new introduction by the author.

This biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower takes the reader up through his military career and his leadership as Allied Supreme Commander, his presidency - the first of the Cold War - and his relations with family, friends and Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, McCarthy, Nixon, LBJ and others.

Chronicles the events, politics, and personalities of this pivotal day in World War II, shedding light on the strategies of commanders on both sides and the ramifications of the battle.

Originally published in 1998 by Simon and Schuster, this book starts at 00:01 hours, June 7, 1944 on the Normandy beaches and ends at 02:45 hours, May 7, 1945, covering the battles in the hedgerows of Normandy, the breakout of Saint-Lo, the liberation of Paris, the Battle of the Bulge and more, ending with the overrunning of Germany.

Chronological continuing narrative of the Second World War beginning with the preparation and training of the Allied armies and Eisenhower's decision to cross the English Channel to capture the Normandy beaches on D-Day this is a portrait of extraordinary courage displayed by ordinary folk.

In this very personal book Stephen Ambrose celebrates his friendships with his father and brothers, boys from his youth, his sons, and among men he found through his work as a historian; his comrades. Ambrose writes about Dwight Eisenhower's remarkable gift for genorosity and loyalty, and about many others who forged those indelible bonds, from the boy-men of World War II to the great Native-American warriors Crazy Horse and He Dog, to the intrepid explorers Lewis and Clark and his brothers, who died together at Little Big Horn. COMRADES concludes with the author's recollection of his own friendship with his father. " He was my first and always most important friend," Amborse wrItes. "I didn't learn that until the end, when he taught me the most important thing , that love the love of father-son-father-son is a continuum, just as love and friendship are expansive."

The Union had won the Civil War and abolished slavery. However, Lincoln, an early champion of railroads, would not live to see the next great achievment. The governmentpitted the Union Pacific against the Central Pacific in a race that encouraged speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the east through Panama, around South America, or lugged across country. The railroad was the last great building project to be done by hand. The brave men who built the American Transcontinental Railroad between 1865 and 1869 came from China, Ireland and the defeated South.

When Stephen Ambrose became interested in American history at age 18, there was much that America had done that made him proud, but there were many things he condemned as well; slavery, the treatment of Native Americans, racist Southern politicians, the Robber Barons of the transcontinental railroad, the use of the atomic bomb. All through his undergraduate and graduate years from 1953-1960, Ambrose learned such ideas from his professors and believed and then taught them himself when he became a teacher of history in 1960. But after researching and writing about the Civil War in graduate school, Eisenhower in the 60s, Crazy Horse and Custer, Lewis and Clark, Nixon, the transcontinental railroad, and World War II over the next three decades, Ambrose's views on American history changed. In his new book the renowned historian celebrates America's spirit and confronts its failures and struggles. As always in his much acclaimed work, Ambrose brings alive the men and women, famous and not, who have peopled history and made the United States the superpower it is now.

'In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory! Good luck!' With these words, on 6 June 1944, Supreme Commander General Dwight Eisenhower sent his troops to liberate Nazi-occupied France. Eisenhower was one of outstanding leaders of the twentieth century. As a soldier, he was decisive, disciplined, courageous and popular with his men, thus commanding the victorious D-Day landings. As President, he was a leader who made peace in Korea and kept the peace thereafter, a statesman who safely guided the free world through one of the most dangerous decades of the Cold War. He was the only president of the twentieth century who managed to preside over eight years of peace and prosperity. Drawn from numerous interviews with Eisenhower himself, and peopled with such eminent figures as Roosevelt, Churchill, de Gaulle, Nixon and Khruschev, EISENHOWER: SOLDIER AND PRESIDENT brings to life an incomparable leader. From bestselling historian Stephen E. Ambrose, this is the fullest, richest, most objective rendering yet of the soldier who became president.

This new paperback edition of Stephen E. Ambrose's highly regarded history of the United States Military Academy features the original foreword by Dwight D. Eisenhower and a new afterword by former West Point superintendent Andrew J. Goodpaster.

Milton S. Eisenhower was one of the most honored and influential statesmen this country has produced. His career spanned government and higher education, and he was a shaping force in both. This biography by Stephen E. Ambrose and Richard H. Immerman traces the 34th President's younger brother's path from small-town Kansas into the Washington bureaucracy and on through the presidencies of Kansas State, Penn State, and Johns Hopkins. Because Eisenhower himself wrote about his government service in two books, Ambrose and Immerman have concentrated instead on his career as an educator. The portrait they paint is based upon extensive research and interviewing, but it is richly colored with anecdotes, opinions, and personal narrative. The portrait of Milton Eisenhower that emerges in this book is of a personable, diplomatic, highly effective administrator-innovative, intuitive, abundantly energetic, tenacious, and combative when necessary. The final section of the book depicts a spirited octogenarian whose contributions to American life continued even after more than a decade of official "retirement."

Emory Upton (1839-1881) was ""the epitome of a professional soldier,"" according to Stephen E. Ambrose. Indeed, his entire adult life was devoted to the single-minded pursuit of a military career. Upton was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Fifth United States Artillery on May 6, 1861, the day of his graduation from the United States Military Academy, and by age twenty-five he had risen to the rank of major general. He distinguished himself in battles at Spotsylvania, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Charlottesville, in Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley campaign, and in Wilson's celebrated cavalry raid through Alabama and Georgia at the end of the war. After the war, Upton traveled abroad as an observer for the army, an experience that resulted in his first book, The Armies of Asia and Europe. He also served as commandant of cadets at West Point and finally as commander of the Presidio in San Francisco. He was highly respected as a military tactician, and his Infantry Tactics became a widely used resource. Despite his successes, the ambitious Upton felt that his military talents were insufficiently recognised. His last book, The Military Policy of the United States, which advocated a number of sweeping changes in the organisation of the American military system, went unpublished at his death by suicide in 1881. The book was finally published in 1904 at the urging of Elihu Root, Theodore Roosevelt's secretary of war. First published in 1964, Ambrose's thorough and well-researched study of Emory Upton's career has proven to be an important addition to American military history as well as to the history of the Civil War.

Halleck originates nothing, anticipates nothing, to assist others; takes no responsibility, plans nothing, suggests nothing, is good for nothing. Lincoln's secretary of the navy Gideon Welles's harsh words embody the stereotype into which Union General-in-Chief Henry Wager Halleck has been cast by most historians since Appomattox. In Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff, originally published in 1962, Stephen Ambrose challenges the standard interpretation of this controversial figure. Ambrose argues persuasively that Halleck has been greatly underrated as a war theorist because of past writers' failure to do justice to his close involvement with movements basic to the development of the American military establishment. He concedes that ""by all the touchstones used to judge great captains of the past, Halleck was a failure,"" but maintains he was nonetheless ""the 'Old Brains' of the Union Army in the time of the testing of the nation.

NOTHING LIKE IT IN THE WORLD is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad – the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other labourers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks. The US government pitted two companies – the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads – against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West, or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle and sweat, comes vibrantly to life.

**THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER**  The book that inspired Steven Spielberg’s acclaimed TV series, produced by Tom Hanks and starring Damian Lewis.  In Band of Brothers, Stephen E. Ambrose pays tribute to the men of Easy Company, a crack rifle company in the US Army. From their rigorous training in Georgia in 1942 to the dangerous parachute landings on D-Day and their triumphant capture of Hitler’s ‘Eagle’s Nest’ in Berchtesgaden. Ambrose tells the story of this remarkable company. Repeatedly send on the toughest missions, these brave men fought, went hungry, froze and died in the service of their country.  A tale of heroic adventures and soul-shattering confrontations, Band of Brothers brings back to life, as only Stephen E. Ambrose can, the profound ties of brotherhood forged in the barracks and on the battlefields.  ‘History boldly told and elegantly written . . . Gripping’ Wall Street Journal  ‘Ambrose proves once again he is a masterful historian . . . spellbinding’ People

D-Day before dawn. Minute by minute, hour by hour the danger grows...In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, a small detachment of British airborne troops stormed the German defence forces and paved the way for the Allied invasion of Europe. Pegasus Bridge was the first engagement of D-Day, the turning point of World War II. This gripping account by acclaimed author Stephen E. Ambrose brings to life a daring mission so crucial that, had it been unsuccessful, the entire Normandy invasion might have failed. Ambrose traces each step of the preparations over many months to the minute-by-minute excitement of the hand-to-hand confrontations on the bridge. This is a story of heroism and cowardice, kindness and brutality - the stuff of all great adventures.

This sequel to D-DAY opens at 00:01 hours, June 7, 1944 on the Normandy Beaches and ends at 02:45 hours, May 7, 1945. In between comes the battles in the hedgerows of Normandy, the breakout of Saint-Lo, the Falaise gap, Patton tearing through France, the liberation of Paris, the attempt to leap the Rhine in operation Market-Garden, the near-miraculous German recovery, the battles around Metz and in the Huertgen Forest, the Battle of the Bulge, the capture of the bridge at Remagen and, finally, the overunning of Germany. From the enlisted men and junior officers, Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews and oral histories from those on both sides of the war. The experience of these citizen soldiers reveals the ordinary sufferings and hardships of war. They overcame their fear and inexperience, the mistakes of their high command and their enemy to win the war.

On June 25, 1876, 611 men of the United States 7th Cavalry rode towards the banks of the Little Bighorn where three thousand Indians stood waiting for battle. The lives of two great war leaders would soon become forever linked: Crazy Horse, leader of the Oglala Sioux, and General George Armstrong Custer. This masterly dual biography tells the epic story of the lives of these two men: both were fighters of legendary daring, both became honoured leaders in their societies when still astonishingly young, and both died when close to the supreme political heights. Yet they - like the nations they represented - were as different as day and night. Custer had won his spurs in the American Civil War; his watchword was 'To promotion - or death!' and his restless ambition characterized a white nation in search of expansion and progress. Crazy Horse fought for a nomadic way of life fast yielding before the buffalo-hunters and the incursions of the white man. The Great Plains of North America provided the stage - and the prize.