Americans at War

Rating:
Summary: Short- to medium essays on different eras of conflict
Review: A reader using this book will have an opportunity to read about different aspects of war as seen from American conflicts that include the Civil War, the World Wars, Vietnam, etc. They are shorter in scope than Ambrose's usual longer efforts that have gained him so much distinction, but each serves its purpose in explaining some aspect of war that took place and could stand further explanation. This is another of his thinner "compilation" efforts, but contains more new material than does Comrades. It is very interesting to read, but its shorter nature does not allow readers to answer all of the questions they may have.

Rating:
Summary: well-written history is always a pleasure.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: An honest account of how we wage war.
Review: Americans At War is a good book with lots of personal experience as an underlying tone. Ambrose does not always agree with the policies that shaped our times. However, he offers well thought out practical analysis of that critical thinking. Ambrose is a professional historian who analysizes the most important aspects of history. For example, he dedicates an entire chapter in Americans At War to the home front. Many military historians coast over this very significant aspect of the World War II. He goes in to detail on how at the time of Pearl Harbor, the United States was significantly unprepared to wage any type of war let alone be the leader of democracy. He shows how American industry, farmers and workers came to the aid of the world. He gives much credit to the women who held families together while men where away. In the process they earned their independence and confidence. Forever chaning their place in society. The combination of personal experience, historical research and critcal thinking make this book an exceptional read.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful history book
Review: I actually bought this book for one of my college courses. I was assigned to read certain sections, but i read this book from the front cover to the back. Ambrose is one of the best history writers on that planet, and this book is no exception to his wonderful accounts of historical events that happened during WW2. Ambrose has a way of making history fun to read about, throwing in funny quirks and other humorous but meaningful stories to make the read much more enjoyable. This book accounts many of the major campaigns as they happened in the war, but it also brings to life many of the major generals and leaders of the war, whether Patton or Monte, or Bradley, this books covers them all. The plans and operations are detailed and too the point. This is definately a Ambrose book that is worth the money if you are interested in WW2.

Rating:
Summary: The First But Not the Last.
Review: I loved Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers and Undaunted Courage.

That said, this book I thought was what happens when an author has written a couple of major best sellers. They come up with an idea and the publisher says sure before even looking at it.

This is not really a history book. It's Ambrose stating his opinion about a number of points in our history. In many cases there isn't even a real description of what happened - just his opinion.

For example, in 24 small pages, he tries to "understand" MacArthur. For someone that complex, giant books have struggled to understand him.

All in all, a waste of time (and paper).

Rating:
Summary: An inciteful look at American war history
Review: Stephen Ambrose has written some thought provoking essays on his opinions about the four major wars of the history of the United States. Although most are simple enough for a novice to enjoy, they also raise some tough issues. For example, in Ambrose's essay on the My Lai massacre, he gives us other examples of war attrocities and juxtaposes them with the horrible Vietnam tragedy. Other essays include a view of NATO using Eisenhower as the focus (Ambrose worked for Eisenhower and it is apparent as there seems to be a reference to him in most of the essays), a portrait of Custer (maybe a little lacking on historical background), and a host of others. In my opinion, this is a good read before (or after) watching a good WW II movie. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Topic Capture/Refreshing Format
Review: The format of Ambrose's essay compilation makes it wonderful topic read and a powerful reference book. The chapter addressing the Atomic Bomb and its consequences presents an objective, interesting, and extremely informative perspective on this overwhelming event. This refreshing and riviting approach provides the reader a method of sitting in Professor Ambrose's classroom while being taught by a master historian. The final essay provides a prophetic outlook to war in the 21st century that is amazingly accurate considering current world events; a perspective that can only be provided through years of study and education. This work is an absolute must own.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Topic Capture/Refreshing Format
Review: The format of Ambrose's essay compilation makes it wonderful topic read and a powerful reference book. The chapter addressing the Atomic Bomb and its consequences presents an objective, interesting, and extremely informative perspective on this overwhelming event. This refreshing and riviting approach provides the reader a method of sitting in Professor Ambrose's classroom while being taught by a master historian. The final essay provides a prophetic outlook to war in the 21st century that is amazingly accurate considering current world events; a perspective that can only be provided through years of study and education. This work is an absolute must own.

Rating:
Summary: From Vicksburg to My Lai, a Marvelous Read
Review: This collection of essays from the entire span of Ambrose's writing career provide an entertaining, very readable and very worthwhile display of American military legacies. There is really no single theme that can said to represent this collection except that which its title states, as it really is a diverse selection of topics from across the US military history field. The discussion of Vicksburg at the beginning of the book was the longest but also the most informative of all the work, though his retouring of D-Day beaches in a later chapter is also a deeply impacting read that would be well worth your time. His analysis of MacArthur is fair and unbiased, also deserving of accalaid, but perhaps the most important is his My Lai analysis, which delved deeply into the mentality of atrocity, soemthing often overlooked but especially important. Another A+ to go on the list Ambrose has already respectably accumulated.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre and very uneven collection of military articles
Review: 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.