Best Selling Books by Stephen E. Ambrose

Dwight D. Eisenhower dreamed of serving under George S. Patton, Jr., but history reversed their roles. Their stormy relationship dramatically shaped the Allied assault on the Third Reich. Here, in this short-form book from acclaimed historian Stephen Ambrose, is their story.

Updated with more than 120 photographs, a visual edition of Ambrose''s definitive account of D-Day traces the epic stories of the soldiers and junior officers who fought and defeated Hitler''s armies.

This groundbreaking book collects black women''s personal recollections of their public and private lives during the period of legal segregation in the American South. Using first-person narratives, collected through oral history interviews, the book emphasizes women''s role in their families and communities, treating women as important actors in the economic, social, cultural, and political life of the segregated South. By focusing on the commonalities of women''s experiences, as well as the ways that women''s lives differed from the experiences of southern black men, Living with Jim Crow analyzes the interlocking forces of racism and sexism .

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.

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.

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."

In the bestselling BAND OF BROTHERS, Stephen E. Ambrose portrayed in vivid detail the experiences of soldiers who fought on the bloody battlegrounds of World War II. THE WILD BLUE brings to life another extraordinary band of brothers - the men who volunteered to join the American Air Force and undertook some of the most demanding and dangerous jobs in the war. Focusing on the men of the 741st Bomb Squadron and, in particular, the crew of the DAKOTA QUEEN, these are the boys turned pilots, bombardiers, navigators and gunners of the B24s, who suffered 50 per cent casualties during conflict. With his extraordinary talent for bringing alive the action and tension of combat, Ambrose sweeps us along in the B24s as their crews fought to the death to reach their targets and destroy the German war machine.

This ebook box set includes Undaunted Courage and Nothing Like It in the World by Stephen E. Ambrose, focusing on the ingenuity and the hardships that shaped the American West. Undaunted Courage: This #1 New York Times bestseller gives a sweeping account of the most momentous expedition in American history. Ambrose follows the Lewis and Clark Expedition from Thomas Jefferson''s hope of finding a waterway to the Pacific, through the heart-stopping moments of the actual trip, to Lewis''s lonely demise on the Natchez Trace. Along the way, Ambrose shows us the American West as Lewis saw it—wild, awesome, and pristinely beautiful. Nothing Like It in the World: A riveting account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage—this is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad. 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, and their race brilliantly comes to life in Ambrose’s telling of 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 all the laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.

Historian Ambrose studies the political and military aspects of Eisenhower''s decision to leave Berlin to the Russian army in the waning days of the European War.

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.

Stephen E. Ambrose draws upon extensive sources, an unprecedented degree of scholarship, and numerous interviews with Eisenhower himself to offer the fullest, richest, most objective rendering yet of the soldier who became president. He gives us a masterly account of the European war theater and Eisenhower''s magnificent leadership as Allied Supreme Commander. Ambrose''s recounting of Eisenhower''s presidency, the first of the Cold War, brings to life a man and a country struggling with issues as diverse as civil rights, atomic weapons, communism, and a new global role. Along the way, Ambrose follows the 34th President''s relations with the people closest to him, most of all Mamie, his son John, and Kay Summersby, as well as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Harry Truman, Nixon, Dulles, Khrushchev, Joe McCarthy, and indeed, all the American and world leaders of his time. This superb interpretation of Eisenhower''s life confirms Stephen Ambrose''s position as one of our finest historians. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

This is volume one of a biography of one of the most elusive and intriguing American political figures, Richard M. Nixon, covering his life from birth through 1962.

From Stephen E. Ambrose, bestselling author of Band of Brothers and D-Day, the inspiring story of the ordinary men of the U.S. army in northwest Europe from the day after D-Day until the end of the bitterest days of World War II. In this riveting account, historian Stephen E. Ambrose continues where he left off in his #1 bestseller D-Day. Citizen Soldiers opens at 0001 hours, June 7, 1944, on the Normandy beaches, and ends at 0245 hours, May 7, 1945, with the allied victory. It is biography of the US Army in the European Theater of Operations, and Ambrose again follows the individual characters of this noble, brutal, and tragic war. From the high command down to the ordinary soldier, Ambrose draws on hundreds of interviews to re-create the war experience with startling clarity and immediacy. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the overrunning of Germany, Ambrose tells the real story of World War II from the perspective of the men and women who fought it.

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 recognized. His last book, The Military Policy of the United States, which advocated a number of sweeping changes in the organization 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.

This ebook box set includes books by Stephen E. Ambrose that bring into focus the men and women who fought in World War II. The Victors: A breathtaking work that follows the momentous events of the war from D-Day through to the final days, centering this epic drama on the citizen soldiers, the boys who became men as they fought, proving eventually unbeatable. A compelling celebration of military genius and heroism, and of camaraderie and courage. Citizen Soldiers: A riveting account that follows the individual characters of World War II, from the high command down to the ordinary soldier, drawing on hundreds of interviews to re-create the war experience with startling clarity and immediacy. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the overrunning of Germany, this is the real story of World War II from the perspective of the men and women who fought it. Wild Blue: Following this exceptional band of brothers, the young men who flew the B-24s over Germany in World War II against terrible odds, Ambrose recounts their extraordinary brand of heroism, skill, daring, and comradeship with the vivid detail and affection.

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.