Oooh, this is just too delicious.

Note: No new post today (Friday) as I am in the middle of a couple of books, but I just wanted to add to the below that if you have any interest whatsoever in how historians sometimes fudge their research, a great book on the subject is Peter Hoffer's Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud--American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin. It's way more scintillating than the title makes it sound.

I have never been a Stephen Ambrose fan.

Or, to put it another way, I have always felt that Stephen Ambrose is one of the most overrated authors (and a plagiarizer to boot) of the twentieth century. This has puzzled at least one of my reading friends, who sighed when she first heard my anti-Ambrose rants and said, "Oh, honestly, how can you like nonfiction and not like Stephen Ambrose?" It's very simple, really. Ambrose writes about subjects that are not at the top of my interests list, and he writes about them with a tone I don't care for : male adventure (yay!), World War II (double yay!), camaraderie under pressure* (the biggest yay of all!). And what was his defense of his plagiarism, particularly in the book The Wild Blue? Well, he just forgot to put quotes around passages that he lifted wholesale from other books.**

I also have memories of what seemed like a double standard for male and female historians from when I worked at a public library; I could never get older male readers to try Doris Kearns Goodwin ("She's a plagiarizer!") they all said, but they would happily read each new Ambrose title as it came along. (How they heard the news story about Goodwin plagiarizing, but not Ambrose, I'll never know.) Recently I was also annoyed to stumble across yet another history of World War II, titled The Pacific, and written by--you guessed it--none other than Ambrose's son Hugh Ambrose. Oh brother. Lots of authors have now profited off the perennial popularity of the "Good War," but the Ambrose family appears to be turning the profiteering into a family dynasty.

So, yes, I'll admit it: I was rather titillated to visit EarlyWord.com yesterday and find this little news snippet: "In this week’s New Yorker, writer Richard Rayner reports that the late historian Stephen Ambrose fabricated interviews with former President Eisenhower for the books that brought Ambrose to fame. The information is based on discoveries by Tim Rives, the deputy director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library."

But enough of my invective. Go read Rayner's article--it's short and very, very interesting. And it gives one even more food for thought on the nature of "truth" and nonfiction.

*I fully admit that I have never been impressed by the war platitude that every guy is just doing it for the guy next to them. That's the way everybody in war feels, so who's to tell who's right? Also, camaraderie under pressure is easy to have; solidarity is easy when everyone's in the shit. Camaraderie when there's no pressure would be a lot more impressive.

**Um, Stephen? That is the definition of plagiarism.

Comments

[Thomas at My Porch]

I worked for a year for an Eisenhower-related commission and found this fascinating. Not just the Ambrose part, but the fact that they have so much detailed information about Ike's schedule even during his retirement.

[Citizen Reader]

Thomas,
I found that super interesting too. I really know very little about Eisenhower (sum total of my knowledge: military man, interstate highways, military-industrial complex) but that article actually made me want to read more about him. Talk about organized. I was also a little surprised that it took so long for this type of information to come to light, too--I suppose there's just no time to check every scholar's claim that they've spent "hundreds" of hours interviewing someone.

[LINDA from EACH LITTLE WORLD]

I love this post coupled with the bereavement book below. You are on a high (or would that be a low?) Have owned the Ambrose Lewis and Clark since it came out and still have not cracked it open. I have a great marriage (if I do say so myself) and held off a long time before I read the Didion book. I was afraid it would be too devastating, but I loved it. Can't picture the Rosenblatt, partly because I don't have kids, which makes a big difference in coping with a sudden death.

[Citizen Reader]

Linda,
I don't know whether you'd term it a high or low but I definitely got way more of a happy buzz than I should have from the Ambrose news. I am a terrible, little person. But I can't help it. I have to take my chuckles where I finds 'em.

I have Didion's Year of Magical Thinking back from the library right now and am going to re-read it; I'm thinking it may actually be a book I buy. I don't know why I find that Didion/Dunne partnership so fascinating, but I do--I'm glad you loved it too (and I'm glad you have a great marriage--always nice to hear in a world where a lot of marriages are emphatically not great).

[nan]

The Ambrose news was shocking but not that surprising when you think about it. Cheaters cheat. It's kind of annoying that he is still venerated but I suppose since he's dead it doesn't matter *that* much. Jack Shafer, the press columnist at Slate, is great on plagiarism, BTW, if you get your schadenfreude kicks that way (I do, so I'm not passing judgment). He hasn't written about this latest Ambrose thing but he was great recently on Gerald Posner, author (or should I say "author") of Miami Babylon, who was busted plagiarizing for The Daily Beast. It's all a reminder that doing this stuff right is damned hard work -- and those who do should get credit. Those who don't deserve to be publicly shamed.

[Citizen Reader]

Nan,
Oh, I didn't think the Ambrose news was shocking at all. I have always thought and continue to think that he was a type of war profiteer, and profiteers of any kind will do whatever it takes to keep the good times going.

Thanks for the Jack Shafer tip. I'm going to check it out. You're right about this writing and research stuff being work--it's hard enough to get at the truth even when trying, after all. Faulty memories in memoirs are one thing--but in historical research, our standards should be a bit higher. Or at least they would be in a perfect world, if we all had a bit more time and resources to dedicate to tracking down these types of details. I say kudos to the person who discovered the discrepancy in interview hours and outed it!

[bybee]

Plagiarists seem to be coolly thinking: "The reading public is so dumb; they'll never notice." Wrong!

[Citizen Reader]

Bybee,
Well, I think they think that, and also that no one has any time to check all this stuff anymore (and I think they're largely right on that). I think they also subscribe to the George W. Bush school of truth-telling: "Just keep saying it, and it will BECOME true."