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 enlarge | Author: Stephen E. Ambrose
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy New: $9.00
You Save: $8.00 (47%)
New (6) Used (11) from $5.73
Avg. Customer Rating:  307 reviews
Sales Rank: 439242
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 656
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.5
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.542142
ASIN: B0013L2EG8
Publication Date: June 1, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Wonderfully engaging history March 20, 2005
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
If the sheer scope and immensity of Ambrose's topic--the Normandy invasion--does not draw you into his book, his accessible and lucid writing will. Ambrose takes the reader through a chronological account of the events that led up to, and resulted from, the Normandy landings.
You will find detailed, responsible accounts of the powerful men who shaped the destinies of untold millions on those days. You will find touching, personal accounts of the ordinary soldier who made it all happen. It is held together by Ambrose's engaging narrative style and insightful observations.
Ambrose's book is not only the best historical work I have read recently, it is perhaps the most in-depth and responsibly researched account of D-Day that is available.
A great oral history when listened to on Audio... December 29, 2004
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
I listened to this book via CD. It was great. I have seen numerous D-day documentaries. The late Stephen Ambrose narrates this book himself.
There are numerous heroic accounts depicted in this book and many tales of the brutality and suffering of war. I found myself choked up at numerous points in the book... in sorrow for those who lost their lives and what they went through.
I would listen to any history as opposed to reading it. (more so because my commute is long and there are too few WWII titles available on CD.)
You won't be disappointed if you purchase this audio book. The other amazon reviewers can give a better feel for the historical accuracy and lost vantage points in the book. It focuses more on the US contribution to D-day and specifically on Omaha beach and the paratroop landings.
However, it is a good tribute to all those who took part in the battle of Normandy. We should never forget that peace is a blessing.
A Grunt's Eye View of D-Day November 19, 2004
18 out of 23 found this review helpful
Ambrose used over 1400 interviews to piece together a compelling history of the D-Day invasion. The strength of this "oral history" approach is that the reader is brought into the heart of the battle through eye-witness testimony of the facts and poignant expressions of emotion from a wide range of participants in this epoch-making event. Once the battle starts, the excitement and fear of the grunts sweeps the reader up into their personal histories. The weakness of the "oral history" approach is that with so many individual data points to connect the historian is hard pressed to find synthesis for all the details. Ambrose has done history a great service by collecting these memories, and the soldier's stories make for great reading. But Ambrose often fails to describe larger unit actions in full detail or to convey a sense of larger meaning of individual actions. In fact, little is said of the English and Canadian beaches, presumably because the participants were not as available for interviews. Ambrose's treatment of historical controversies is often short on factual background, and there is little if any theoretical or analytical context for these oral histories. These are simply good stories of many individual experiences. Don't read this book for lessons on strategic decision making or to answer questions such as Rommel's degree of responibility for the German defeat or Montgomery's total failure to achieve his D-Day objectives until after the American breakout. Ambrose touches on these larger issues, but that is not his focus. This is a book about the American achievement in Normandy, and here is where Ambrose excels. The individual courage and independence of the American small unit leaders is big story of this book and one of the great stories of the ETO. In portraying these Citizen Soldiers in all of their valor and toughness, Ambrose is right on target.
D-Day book review November 3, 2004
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
D-Day us about the biggest battle of World War II. D-Day was that day the Allies invaded Normandy.
he Allies broke through the Atlantic Wall, Hitler's so called impenetrable defense. D-Day happened on June 6th, 1944. The Aliess had planned this full force invasion of Normandy months before it was carried out. hey trained day in and day out preparing for the biggest invasion in world history. The Allies thought that when they got to the beach that they could just walk right across because some B52's had bombed the wall, but they were wrong. The wall was barely damage and when they set foot on the beach they were hit with a barrage of machine gun and mortar fire. Although the Germans fought their best so did the Allies. On Omaha beach the casualties were extremely high! The British however, had brought in their special floating tabks so they practically walked across Sword Beach. The Canadians were hit pretty hard, but not as hard as the Americans on Omaha and Utah beaches. In the end the Allies won the battle at a heavy price. Thousands of soldiers lost their lives, a lot of them getting off the boats. Some of the others died of blood loss. The rest wre shot in vital spots such as the head or heart. But in the end D-Day was a big success.
 A warning to 'Allied' readers October 31, 2004
19 out of 26 found this review helpful
While this book claims to be the definitive account of D-Day, paying all those involved their due, you only have to glimpse at the other reviews on this site to realise this is not the case. Ambrose was Director of The Eisenhower Center, an organisation that, among other things, collects first-hand accounts of primarily American veterans; he was a staunch supporter of the National D-Day Museum, whose `mission is to remind the American people of the day when the fury of an aroused democracy was hurled against Nazi-occupied Europe, and to inspire future generations by showing that there is nothing this Republic cannot do when everyone gets on the team'; and in his acknowledgements he writes of his book, `I like to think that General Eisenhower would have approved'. How ANYBODY can believe that he could write an objective account of a man he was clearly in awe of and a D-Day that involved more than just members of `this Republic', is beyond me. Having read `Crazy Horse and Custer' and `Pegasus Bridge', I felt Ambrose was a fine historian, but in this instance he has failed to honour his duty to those who died, and those who came back to tell a tale completely different to his.
I am not a patriotic Brit; I do not define myself by my nationality; and yet, as I read this book, I became more and more annoyed by the sidelining of the non-American forces, and the ridiculing of their bravery and efficiency. Whereas most writers are free to expound their prejudices, historians have a sacred duty to be objective and to honour the people of the past. I am not saying that historians don't have opinions or prejudices, but better authors prove their point by allowing the facts to speak for themselves. At The Eisenhower Center, Ambrose had access to over a thousand first-hand accounts from American D-Day veterans. His utilisation of those accounts is impressive, and he clearly put in tremendous effort reading and editing them into a story, but a sincere lack of effort has gone into researching the forces allied to the US. As a result throughout this book, pages and pages are devoted to American activities, with a couple of lines here and there saying: `the experience of America's Allies were pretty much the same'. 75,000 British and Canadian troops went into battle compared with 57,000 American soldiers, not to mention that more than half the ships were Royal Navy and two-thirds of the planes were RAF, but reading this book you'd think that only the American GIs, the USN and the USAAF were involved. What's worse, in his dealing with the upper echelons of power, everything is viewed from Eisenhower's perspective, from his memoirs, his notes, his diary and journal; Ambrose does not allow Churchill, Montgomery, Harris, Leigh-Mallory, or any of the other Allied COs to speak for themselves, or to defend themselves. Indeed, Eisenhower is set up as beyond reproach. From the offing, therefore, the `definitive' account of D-Day is poorly balanced.
I'm not in favour of the American-bashing reviews here, and I have no complaint with an American author writing about the American involvement in D-Day, but this book is not marketed as such. I don't have any problems with his book `Citizen Soldiers: The US Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Surrender of Germany' because that achieves what it sets out to achieve. Had this book been entitled: `D-Day: the American Involvement' I would have no problem with it; instead, Ambrose ambitiously makes his aim to cover D-Day in its entirety, and overstretches himself. Lacking in research, he makes derogative statements without any evidence to back up his claims. With D-Day veterans in every town in Britain, and with memorials to the myriad honoured dead scattered throughout the countryside, Ambrose's snide comments aimed at the `allied' forces and civilians, their leaders, even their food, quickly undermine any credibility he creates with his reasonable treatment of American sources. As a result, in this `definitive' account, opinion is offered up as fact, and the allied forces play the Three Stooges to Ambrose's infallible superhero Eisenhower.
Putting aside the jingoistic Americana, Ambrose is able to `make history come alive' with his writing. All too often, books like this become bogged down with statistical data, losing the human impact (a la Anthony Beever), or, conversely, they become so emotionally over-the-top that they lose all credibility. Ambrose never fails to keep his writing utterly enthralling, providing a careful balance of information and human drama, and, nicely, allows mainly the American, but also some British and German, soldiers present to tell the story in their own words. But while it's well-written, I just can't forgive that one of my grandfathers, who was a Pathfinder in the RAF aerial bombardment of Ouistreham in the early hours of June 6, and my other grandfather, who was a signalman who landed in the second wave at Gold Beach, and all the other British, Canadian, French, Polish, Czech, Australian and New Zealand soldiers and civilians who helped make D-Day happen, aren't recognised for their efforts. So a word of warning to those readers from `allied' nations: if you're easily offended, and know your country's history well enough to spot when somebody else doesn't, avoid this book like the plague.
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