Ambrose was born in
Decatur, Illinois, and reared in
Whitewater, Wisconsin, having graduated from Whitewater High School. His family also owned a farm in
Lovington, Illinois.
Ambrose served as a professor of
history at several universities from
1960 until his retirement in
1995, having spent the bulk of his time at the
University of New Orleans. For the academic year 1969-70, he was
Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the
Naval War College. In
1970, he was driven from his position at
Kansas State University in
Manhattan after having heckled President Nixon during a speech that the president gave on the KSU campus. He also taught at
Louisiana State University in
Baton Rouge.
Early in his career, Ambrose was mentored by
World War II historian
Forrest Pogue. He was the author of several bestselling books about the war, including
D-Day,
Citizen Soldiers and
The Victors. Other major books include
Undaunted Courage, about
Lewis and Clark, and
Nothing Like It in the World, about the construction of the
Transcontinental Railroad. He was the founder of the
Eisenhower Center and President of the
National World War II Museum in
New Orleans, Louisiana. He was the
military adviser on the movie
Saving Private Ryan and was an executive producer on
the television mini-series that was based on his book,
Band of Brothers..
Eisenhower chose Ambrose as his
biographer after admiring his work on
Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff, which was based on his doctoral dissertation. The resulting Eisenhower biographies were generally enthusiastic, but contained many criticisms of the former commander in chief.
Ambrose also wrote a highly regarded three-volume biography of Richard Nixon, also generally positive, but his
Band of Brothers (
1993) and
D-Day (
1994), about the lives and fates of individual soldiers in the World War II invasion, catapulted him out of the ranks of academic history and into mainstream American culture. The mini-series 'Band of Brothers' (2001) lionized American troops and helped sustain the fresh interest in WWII that was stimulated by the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994, and the 60th anniversary of
D-Day in 2004.
Interestingly, Ambrose has received criticism from American veterans. Veterans of
troop carrier units that transported paratroopers in the
American airborne landings in Normandy have severely criticized Ambrose for portraying them as unqualified and craven in several of his works, including
Band of Brothers and
D-Day, and for characterizing them as "cranks" when they asked that he change the passages. Mark Bando, a published historian of the 101st Airborne in World War II, maintains a Web site ("Trigger Time") that while often praising Ambrose, also notes numerous discrepancies and some apparent fabrications, many of which have disturbed other veterans of the 101st.
It is said that Ambrose organized his entire family into a sort of "history factory" and began turning out popular books of history like
The Wild Blue. In 2002, Ambrose was accused of plagiarizing several passages which he footnoted but did not enclose in the customary quotation marks.
Ambrose also appeared as a historian in the landmark television history of World War II,
The World at War.
In
1995, Ambrose urged that retired General
Colin Powell seek the presidency. The historian said that he would back Powell on either major party ticket. Powell declined to seek the presidency.
In 2002, Ambrose was posthumously awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Medal for Distinguished Public Service from the
Theodore Roosevelt Association.
Ambrose, a longtime smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer in
April 2002. The condition deteriorated rapidly, and six months after the diagnosis he died at the age of 66, leaving behind his wife Moira and children Andy, Barry and Hugh, Grace and Stephenie.
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