Rating: 
Summary: An excellent collection of soldiers' memories.
Review: Stephen Ambrose does an excellent, craftsmanlike job of piecing together the memories of the men of Easy Company, 101st Airborne. In 'Band of Brothers' he recounts the 18 months or so from the formation of Easy Company under the disciplinarian Herbert Sobel, to their disbandment at war's end. To many, the fact that men can accept death in such an uncomplicated way is puzzling, yet many books that have been written from the soldiers' perspectives indicate that this attitude was prevelant to all fighting men.One of the telling moments for me was, I believe, when Lt. Col. (later Gen.) Harry W.O.Kinnard said of the Battle of the Bulge, "We never felt we would be overrun. We were beating back everything they threw at us. We had the houses and were warm. They were outside the town, in the snow and cold." Every surviving member of E company kept copies of that newspaper story with comments which could best be translated as "What battle was he in?" To me, this shows that Ambrose really did get the soldiers' take on the war. The trenches, the deaths, the cold, the hunger. If I may make one small criticism it is that, in places, he relied TOO much on the soldiers' memories... he talks of E Company's 'triumphant capture' of Berchtesgaden (Hitler's Eagle's Nest). History says he is wrong. In fact the French, under orders from General Leclerc, but against the orders of deGaulle beat the Americans into Berchtesgaden by almost a full day. The differences in recollection may well come from the fact that the Americans were first into the sections of Eagle's Nest they considered important - the French, led by an engineer called Bernard de Nonancourt had gone straight to the wine cellars to reclaim their half-million bottles of captured wine! Difference of priority - difference of perspective! Band of Brothers is an excellent account of man's inhumanity to man; of men's love for their fellow men, and of mens' sacrifices for mankind. It is also an interesting perspective on the actions undertaken by Easy Company during the last 12 months of the war in Europe.
Rating: 
Summary: No glory, No honor, just a group of guys facing up to war
Review: A great account from the soldier's perspective. No politics and not a lot of aggrandization of the officers or generals. How did the grunts get the job done. Read on...
Rating:
Summary: Joy to Read, Story of Heroes!
Review: I still have not seen the HBO mini-series yet, so I cannot compare the book to the series. This book is very entertaining and I would recommend it for anyone interested in WWII, war stories, and heroic tales. It is one of the top 5 books I have read in my life. Easy company's (an elite airborne unit) exploits are recreated by a series of interviews with the soldiers, old letters, manuscripts, and a few reference books. Ambrose weaves the myriad of information into a coherent and fast-paced story. The book gives the reader an idea of the terrors of war and many accounts of heroic actions taken by men (some scared some not) when put into the most difficult of situations. There is always a price to pay for freedom and the defeat of evil. The men that are described in the book all seem overly modest; they are all heroes in my book. God Bless the USA!
Rating: 
Summary: An entertaining book, a better miniseries
Review: An entertaining book that lent itself well to an excellent miniseries. The brief and very shallow source section at the end of the book did little to enhance the text and made it impossible to know exactly what historical research was done other than oral interviews. My inquiring mind requires more substance concerning Ambrose's research. The book kept ones interest fairly well although I found it fairly basic. A good, light read. but if what you're looking for something with some real depth and historic data, this book isn't it. . .kind of like Ambrose gone Hollywood.
Rating: 
Summary: Good account of Easy company, but.....
Review: Ambrose has done another marvelous job of oral history. He does a masterful account of Easy company, but he obviously is a Cold warrior of the Cold war as not only in this book but also in 'Citizen Soldiers', he villified the Soviets (Russians) as plundering, raping, and burning in Germany-Austria. He does not at all talk about Nazi atrocities that were a hundred times greater (more like a thousand) and it is because mainly of Soviet Union that Europe does not speak German and still has (well a few) Jews left. He also obviously has German sympathies. While he is not by any account a Nazi, his books trouble and offend me as a Ukrainian whose grandfather lost his mother and two siblings to the Germans and fought in the Red Army.
Rating:
Summary: We few, we happy few, we Band of Brothers
Review: Made into an excellent miniseries on HBO, Band of Brothers is an account of one of the greatest combat companies in the European Theater of Operations. The book focuses on the entire history of Easy Company, from their basic training beginnings under a sadistic CO to their combat jumps in Normandy and Holland and finally to their victorious celebration at Eagle's Nest while drinking Hitler's finest Champagne. The central character of the book is that of Major Dick Winters, a "Citizen Soldier" who all military officers should look to for inspiration. After reading this book you feel compelled to write Mr. Winters and thank him for his courage and his determination. This book does give more in-depth accounts than what was offered in "Citizen Soldiers" and "D-Day". I reccommend this work to anyone who wants a detailed account of a combat company at work in fighting the Nazis. Like other books by Ambrose, this is not one to skip.
Rating:
Summary: Eminently readable
Review: This is unquestionably the best book by Stephen Ambrose that I have read, in the main because it's pretty honest about what it is and what it isn't. Band of Brothers clearly isn't trying to be a "serious" history of WWII or the 101st Airborne. Ambrose set out to chronicle the experiences of the members of E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from training through their return home, and in this he does a fabulous job. The work done in interviewing and rationalising the stories of all these different men, and turning it into a tight, engrossing, readable book is very impressive. Reading Band of Brothers really does feel like sitting down with the members of E Company and having them recount their story in a crisp, clear, and rivetting way. I do have some minor qualms about the book though, and thus only four stars. It has to my mind a bit of a war-as-action-adventure feel. While the grime of war is mentioned, and even examined at times, Ambrose tends to be upbeat and tends to keep the unpleasentness at arms length. After all, we know all the main characters will survive because if they hadn't, there would be no story or they wouldn't be main characters. His narrative simply lacks the bite of, say, Guy Sajer's The Forgotten Soldier. Ambrose tends to look upon the members of E Company virtually as gods - perhaps a not unfounded opinion, but one that certainly interferes with his judgement on several occasions. Maybe it's just me, but I think a more critical look at events would actually make the members of E Company look even better, as Band of Brothers doesn't do as good a job as Keegan, Bergerud, or Sajer at conveying how hard and dangerous things really were. It is important to remember that Band of Brothers does lack the critical angle of serious history. This is not a random infantry company, but one selected very specifically in retrospect. Other than interviews, Ambrose really only draws on two sources (!), one of which is the regimental history (while there are a fair number of footnotes in the book, they seem mostly for show as they get rather monotonous). In his landmark Face of Battle, written some 15 years before Band of Brothers, John Keegan agonises over the role of the military historian, and how a man who has never heard a shot fired in anger can convey any sense of "what it's like" to be in battle in his brilliant introduction to that book. Suffice to say, Ambrose is not troubled by such difficult questions and falls feet-first into some of the traps Keegan describes. Bearing all this firmly in mind, however, and not trying to take this book for somthing which it isn't, Band of Brothers is still excellent and very highly recommended (moreso than the HBO miniseries, which didn't really capture the strengths of the book I thought). As somthing somewhere between reminiscence and history, this will give you a basic appreciation of what it was like for an elite, highly-motivated squad during World War II. I'd just recommend supplementing it perhaps with John Keegan's Six Armies in Normandy or The Face of Battle, both of which provide brilliant and critical insight into the nature of battle.
Rating:
Summary: A book of true brotherhood
Review: I read this book after watching the first few episodes of the HBO miniseries based on it. I was so moved by the book that I have taken it upon myself to learn more about WWII and take personal histories of members of my family. You felt as if you knew the men that are interviewed for this book and how many men there were that didn't come back and have a chance to tell their stories. What a great generation they all are. Both of my grandfathers fought in WWII. Neither have a lot to say about what they did and what happened. Sharing this book with them has released stories even thier wives didn't know. Stories that would be forever lost. The 506th exudes brotherhood-what it means to truly love others and sacrifice. Under intense, unimaginable conditions, they came together for the better good. I would highly recommend reading this book along with any others by Ambrose.
Rating:
Summary: "We in it shall be remembered, we band of brothers."
Review: In the late summer of 2001, before the terrorist attacks of September 11th turned every American's world upside-down (gosh, that seems like an eternity ago now!!) a ten-week mini-series began on the Home Box Office (HBO) cable network. That mini-series, entitled "Band of Brothers," told with exquisite eloquence the story of one of the most famous U.S. Army units to fight during World War II. The book that forms the basis of this particular HBO mini-series is "Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest." Written by noted historian and biographer Stephen E. Ambrose, it is, in every way, an extraordinary book! Imbued with Ambrose's trademark simple eloquence, "Band of Brothers" is an uncommonly powerful narrative of one of the most storied units in U.S. Army history: Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. That unit had its beginnings on the hot, swampy training grounds of south Georgia; fought its way with uncommon courage on some of the bloodiest battlegrounds of Europe during World War II; suffered over 150 percent casualties during its illustrious wartime career; and disbanded in the summer of 1945, only a few weeks after the defeat of Germany. By the end of the war, Easy Company was one of the most decorated units to have fought in any theater of operations. My review here cannot even begin to do justice to Stephen Ambrose's magnificent narrative in "Band of Brothers." This book is a real departure from the kinds of books previously written by Ambrose. In his other works of history, books like "Undaunted Courage," "D-Day," and "Nothing Like It in the World," Ambrose casts a historian's dispassionate, unbiased eye on his subject and relates his story with complete neutrality. Not so in "Band of Brothers!" This is a personal story... one written to cast a spotlight on the brave men who served their country so bravely and nobly on the battlefields of Europe in World War II. Ambrose introduces us to men like Herb Sobel, the incompetent martinet who was Easy Company's first Commander; Dick Winters, the complete antithesis of Sobel (and Sobel's nemesis as well) who became so beloved by the men of Easy that they followed him anywhere; Lewis Nixon, another brilliant officer who, despite being plagued by alcoholism, proved a tremendously capable and courageous leader; Carwood Lipton, the company first sergeant, another extraordinary leader whose courage and example eventually earned him a battlefield commission; and other noncoms, like Bill Guanere, John Martin, and Shifty Powers, whose courage under fire held the company together during its darkest hours. In every case, Ambrose helps us get to know, and I mean really KNOW, the patriotic men who were the heart and soul of Easy Company. Ambrose's descriptions of battle are second to none in this book. Relying on first-hand accounts of Easy Company veterans (Winters, Lipton, Guanere, and Powers among them), Ambrose has constructed a narrative that brings the reader right into the heart of battle. I found myself completely captivated by the accounts of Winters leading his patrol against the German 88's; and the heartbreaking losses in Holland and the incredible suffering during the siege at Bastogne. "Band of Brothers" is a relatively short book, running to just over 300 pages. Each and every one of those pages comes alive with Ambrose's brilliantly constructed narrative, written in his simple yet eloquent writing style. Fair, judicious, and yet warmly sympathetic to its subject, "Band of Brothers" is as good a book about war and the courageous men who fought it as one is likely to find anywhere. Read and enjoy!!
Rating:
Summary: What a Book!
Review: I think it would be insulting for anyone to give this book less than a 5 star rating..........
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