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A review by eiseneisen
Americans at War by Stephen E. Ambrose
2.0
I'm a big fan of author Stephen Ambrose. D-Day and Band of Brothers are 2 of the best military history books I've read. Americans at War is merely okay.
Americans at War consists of several essays on a variety of military people and topics, beginning with Ulysses S. Grant's siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War, ending with Ambrose's speculations on "War in the 21st Century" (Americans at War was published in 1997), and touching upon seemingly every military conflict in between. Unfortunately, I found fewer than half of the essays particularly well-written, insightful, or interesting. In some essays Ambrose completely fails to satisfactorily support his thesis, which is both surprising and disappointing in a historian and writer who has been as consistently superb as Ambrose.
I thought 2 essays were particularly interesting, "The Atomic Bomb and It's Consequences" and "A Fateful Friendship: Eisenhower and Patton." But beyond those essays, I wouldn't recommend Americans at War to anyone interested in military history, as there are dozens of far more worthwhile reads out there.
Americans at War consists of several essays on a variety of military people and topics, beginning with Ulysses S. Grant's siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War, ending with Ambrose's speculations on "War in the 21st Century" (Americans at War was published in 1997), and touching upon seemingly every military conflict in between. Unfortunately, I found fewer than half of the essays particularly well-written, insightful, or interesting. In some essays Ambrose completely fails to satisfactorily support his thesis, which is both surprising and disappointing in a historian and writer who has been as consistently superb as Ambrose.
I thought 2 essays were particularly interesting, "The Atomic Bomb and It's Consequences" and "A Fateful Friendship: Eisenhower and Patton." But beyond those essays, I wouldn't recommend Americans at War to anyone interested in military history, as there are dozens of far more worthwhile reads out there.