I have been amazed on a daily basis by the quality of the Citizen Soldiers and D-Day audio books I've been listening to by Stephen Ambrose. For many people, history is a subject concerned with the memorization of disjointed facts, names, and dates, but Ambrose makes it personal. He has an incredible ability to weave together stories from interviews, letters, and official records into a captivating narrative that tells the bigger picture. It's history from the bottom up, just like those involved would tell it to their children and grandchildren.

Learning the Allied invasion of Europe took place on June 6th, 1944 is much more memorable when you hear from soldiers who boarded ships on June 5th only to endure twenty-four hours of seasickness while the invasion was delayed a day due to bad weather. The often incredible acts of heroism are more easily understood when you read letters home saying soldiers were most concerned about letting down the men who had become like family to them. You start to see individuals among the millions of soldiers when you hear stories like about the paratrooper who jumped out of the plane and dropped a baseball on which he had written "We're coming for you, Hitler." And you get a genuine feel for the young men wanting to fit in and show solidarity when you hear about one pre-invasion squad shaving their heads bald and seeing the practice spread to thousands of men.

Stephen Ambrose sets the standard for how history should be written.

Posted by JoshC at July 5, 2007 9:15 PM

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