Stephen E Ambrose

Worth reading, or biased tosh verging on fiction?

Watched and enjoyed both Band of Brothers and Pacific, and was considering reading BoB to see if it filled in any of the details that the HBO mini series couldn’t include.

Reviews on amazon are fairly positive, but there are enough reservations along the above lines – jingoistic American perspective, bias towards certain aspects / events / characters, “artful” re-interpretation / packaging of the truth.

Anyone read any of his stuff. IIRC Beevor or Hastings had derided his “revisionist” re-telling events

Nobody?

… surprised, thought there might have been a few on here

I have read that, I think that it is well worth reading.

Read it as you would any other historical novel and you will not be offended.

I liked the book more than the TV series. Have read another couple of his books – Ok, but can be a bit “gee whiz”. I’d say they’re more reportage/memoir than serious history.

Is there such a thing as a bookworm? A worm that eats books?

Kinda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookworm_%28insect%29

Might give Band of Brothers a go.

On the subject of fact vs fiction…

Has anyone read this…

Fascinating, but gruelling book, with an interesting, unusual take on a bit of post war history. Was sold as being factual when I got a copy in the early 80s. Seems debateable today…