And I'm okay with that.

Once he exploded into fame, he became the populist historian, derided and scorned by other historians and beloved by the public.

Though I wrote a (local) history book, I'm in the latter camp, not the former. Ambrose brought some great subjects (the intercontinental railroad, Lewis & Clark) to a wider audience, and helped revive interest in World War II and respect for its veterans. That's pretty awesome.

Did he screw up and not properly credit folks for passages in his books? Yes, he did. And bad on him for that. I do think he got more scrutiny than almost anyone else due to his high profile, and suspect many historians would show the same lapses if scrutinized to the same degree, but that doesn't necessarily forgive those lapses. He screwed up, and he made it worse by not insisting on revised editions with the proper attributions.

Still, I've enjoyed his books and appreciate that he helped bring stodgy old boring history to the masses. That's a good thing. Who could ever have imagined that a 500-page book on the Lewis & Clark expedition would be a top best seller?

I like Stephen Ambrose, even if he is a filthy text thief*.







*fact is, a lot of writing on history is very much based on taking a whole slew of sources and bringing them together under one roof. Riding on the backs of those who came before you. It's part of the process. Ambrose got flayed for it, I think, in large part because he got more popular than any historian since Cornelius Ryan.

There was a spate of historians getting called on plagiarism when this first came to light. IIRC, Doris Kearns Goodwin also got accused of something similar. I think the practice of using uncredited assistants and researchers is much more prevalent in historical non-fiction and biographies than people realized, and that two of the most notable historians were caught doing something many of their peers practice in, as well.

Doesn't make it right, but it doesn't invalidate the information in the book, either.

Screechy is right -- these plagiarism scandals end up revealing how much of these books are the work of uncredited assistants.

Yes, absolutely. In both cases a lot of blame was shifted to these research assistants -- in at least one case with Ambrose, he threw his own son under the bus! (His son Hugh was a research assistant on several of his books) These folks go out and gather up all sorts of neat information, and these folks write it up.

It sort of makes the research assistant the real historian and the writer just the writer, doesn't it?

And the research assistants often depend heavily upon librarians to do their jobs!

I recall from working in academic library environments that professors and/or their assistants were sometimes capable of dropping ridiculous loads of requests on top of you all at once. Sometimes that made it obvious what they were working on; sometimes you just had to scratch your head and wonder what they were up to.

And I hear they hire and fire a bunch of flunkies to do their jobs!

No, the buck pretty well stops here. Although I have been known to ask members of my staff to look up obituaries and stuff.

Damn librarians. The cause of all plagiarism.

They're the pushers of the literary world.

"The first book's free."

Oh come on! At worst we unwittingly help facilitate it now and then.

Oh sure. Denial isn't just a river in Egypt.