Stephen E. Ambrose Books In Order

Eisenhower Books In Publication Order

  1. Eisenhower, Volume #1 (1983)
  2. Eisenhower, Volume #2 (1984)

Nixon Books In Publication Order

  1. Nixon Volume #1 (1987)
  2. Nixon Volume #2 (1987)
  3. Nixon Volume #3 (1991)

Norton Essays in American History Books In Publication Order

  1. Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945 (1967)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. This Vast Land: A Young Man’s Journal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (2003)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. Halleck (1962)
  2. Upton and the Army (1964)
  3. Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point (1966)
  4. Institutions in Modern America (1967)
  5. The Supreme Commander: The War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower (1970)
  6. Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (1971)
  7. The Military and American Society (1972)
  8. Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors (1975)
  9. Ike’s Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment (1981)
  10. Milton S. Eisenhower: Educational Statesman (With: ) (1983)
  11. Pegasus Bridge: D-Day: The Daring British Airborne Raid (1984)
  12. Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (1992)
  13. D-Day: June 6, 1944, The Climactic Battle of World War II (1994)
  14. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (1996)
  15. Americans at War (1997)
  16. American Heritage: New History of World War II (1997)
  17. Citizen Soldiers: From the Normandy Beaches to the Surrender of Germany (1997)
  18. The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys: The Men of WWII (1998)
  19. Lewis and Clark: Voyage of Discovery (1998)
  20. Victory in Europe, May 1945 (1998)
  21. Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals (1999)
  22. Witness to America: An Illustrated Documentary History of the United States from the Revolution to Today (1999)
  23. Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869 (2000)
  24. The Wild Blue: The Men And Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany, 1944-45 (2001)
  25. The Good Fight: How World War II Was Won (2001)
  26. To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian (2002)
  27. The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today (2002)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. West Point: Two Centuries of Honor and Tradition (2002)

Eisenhower Book Covers

Nixon Book Covers

Norton Essays in American History Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Stephen E. Ambrose Books Overview

Eisenhower, Volume #1

Dwight Eisenhower was not exactly born into poverty, but the family’s circumstances were at least austere. He was one of seven children; his father, a railway worker. But the family was strong and unified, the youngsters energetic and ambitious. Ike made it to West Point, where he excelled in sports. He was a natural leader. But it was at Leavenworth years later, as a student at the war college, that his intellectual talent showed itself. He graduated first in his class. The author draws in a wealth of previously unpublished information to give us this beautiful portrait. As a result Eisenhower emerges as complex, one who as the author states, ‘…
was a good and great man.’

Nixon Volume #1

From acclaimed biographer Stephen E. Ambrose comes the life of one of the most elusive and intriguing American political figures, Richard M. Nixon. From his difficult boyhood and earnest youth to bis ruthless political campaigns for Congress and Senate to his defeats in ’60 and ’62, Nixon emerges life size in all his complexity. Ambrose charts the peaks and valleys of Nixon’s first fifty years his critical support as a freshman congressman of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan; his involvement in the House Committee on Un American Activities; his aggressive pursuit of Alger Hiss; his ambivalent relationship with Eisenhower; and more. It is the consummate biography; it is a stunning political odyssey.

Nixon Volume #2

The author begins this volume on election day in 1962 when Richard Nixon, defeated in his bid for the California governorship, retired from political life. But staging one of the greatest political comebacks in American history, on November 6, 1968, Richard Nixon achieved the ultimate triumph and was elected president of the US. With the help of Henry Kissinger, Nixon opened relations with China, established detente with the USSR and withdrew troops from the bloody stalemate in Vietnam yet in preparing for the 1972 election, he had begun sowing the seeds of his own destruction in the maelstrom the country would soon refer to as ‘Watergate’.

Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945

In the final months of World War II, with the Allied forces streaming into Germany on two fronts, a major decision had to be made: where to draw a stop line to prevent an accidental clash between the Russian and the Anglo American armies. Behind this decision lay another. Whose forces would be the first to reach Berlin? General Dwight David Eisenhower, supreme commander of the British and American armies, chose to halt at the Elbe River and leave Berlin to the Red Army. Could he have beaten the Russians to Berlin? If so, why didn’t he? If he had, would the Berlin question have arisen? Would Germany have been divided as it was? Would the Cold War have assumed a direction more favorable to the West? In a narrative of steady fascination, Stephen E. Ambrose describes both the political and the military aspects of the situation, sketches the key players, explains the alternatives, and considers the results. The result is a sharply focused light on an important question of the postwar world. This paperback edition features a new introduction by the author. Maps

This Vast Land: A Young Man’s Journal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

In a story muscled with truth and imagination, Stephen E. Ambrose 1936 2002 recounts the epoch making 1803 expedition of Lewis and Clark through the words of a young man. Finding foes and friends among Natives, surviving sickness and hunger, choosing between a woman and the life he left behind, George Shannon grows up as the corps forges a way west. Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, Ambrose creates the fictional diary of nineteen year old George Shannon, who was in fact the youngest member of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery. He conjures the journey west with stunning clarity, calling on the bravery of Daniel Boone, the pragmatic courage of Sacajawea, the overarching, relentless vision of Meriwether Lewis. This is a book for young readers as well as for those who are looking for new insights into the Northwest Passage. Ambrose’s vivid characters, his page turning account, and the map that charts the explorers’ route manifest the spirit of one nation and her indelible destiny.

Upton and the Army

This book is a biography on Emory Upton’s career from a commissioned second lieutenant in the Fifth United States Artillery to his death by suicide in 1881.

Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point

This new paperback edition of Stephen E. Ambrose’s highly regarded history of the United States Military Academy features the original foreword by Dwight D. Eisenhower and a new afterword by former West Point superintendent Andrew J. Goodpaster.’There have been many other histories of West Point, but this is the best…
From this excellent book every American will find interest and take pride in this truly national institution that has played so great a part in the building of the country.’ Historical Times’The title of this first rate account of the United States Military Academy is drawn from the Academy’s motto…
Ambrose follows the long gray line through history, skillfully re creating the administrations of West Point’s outstanding superintendents Sylvanus Thayer and Douglas MacArthur, telling some amusing anecdotes about cadets ‘who simply refused to conform to the West Point mold’ James McNeill Whistler and Edgar Allan Poe.’ New York Times Book Review’The conception of West Point, as Ambrose makes clear in his short history of the Military Academy, was immaculately Jeffersonian. It was a school to train engineers that most liberal, nonaristocratic, and socially useful branch of the military service not in order to create a corps d’ lite but to provide the reservoir of military expertise which was needed if the militia ideal were to become a practical reality…
Ambrose has told this story clearly and well; he is at his best in tying it to the larger context of American politics, social attitudes, and higher education.’ Journal of American History’A welcome addition to the growing literature on military education. Ambrose covers the whole history of West Point, from the first feeble beginnings under President Jefferson down to the present. He has carefully examined both the published and unpublished sources and has rounded out the basic data with numerous interviews.’ Journal of Higher Education

Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938

‘One of the most lively and provocative interpretive studies of the major events in recent American diplomatic history.’ American Historical Review Since it first appeared in 1971, Rise to Globalism has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. The ninth edition of this classic survey, now updated through the administration of George W. Bush, offers a concise and informative overview of the evolution of American foreign policy from 1938 to the present, focusing on such pivotal events as World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, and 9/11. Examining everything from the Iran Contra scandal to the rise of international terrorism, the authors analyze in light of the enormous global power of the United States how American economic aggressiveness, racism, and fear of Communism have shaped the nation’s evolving foreign policy.

Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors

On the sparkling morning of June 25, 1876, 611 men of the United States 7th Cavalry rode toward the banks of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory, where 3,000 Indians stood waiting for battle. The lives of two great warriors would soon be forever linked throughout history: Crazy Horse, leader of the Oglala Sioux, and General George Armstrong Custer. Both were men of aggression and supreme courage. Both became leaders in their societies at very early ages; both were stripped of power, in disgrace, and worked to earn back the respect of their people. And to both of them, the unspoiled grandeur of the Great Plains of North America was an irresistible challenge. Their parallel lives would pave the way, in a manner unknown to either, for an inevitable clash between two nations fighting for possession of the open prairie.

Milton S. Eisenhower: Educational Statesman (With: )

Milton S. Eisenhower was one of the most honored and influential statesmen this country has produced. His career spanned government and higher education, and he was a shaping force in both. This biography by Stephen E. Ambrose and Richard H. Immerman traces the 34th President’s younger brother’s path from small town Kansas into the Washington bureaucracy and on through the presidencies of Kansas State, Penn State, and Johns Hopkins. Because Eisenhower himself wrote about his government service in two books, Ambrose and Immerman have concentrated instead on his career as an educator. The portrait they paint is based upon extensive research and interviewing, but it is richly colored with anecdotes, opinions, and personal narrative. The portrait of Milton Eisenhower that emerges in this book is of a personable, diplomatic, highly effective administrator innovative, intuitive, abundantly energetic, tenacious, and combative when necessary. The final section of the book depicts a spirited octogenarian whose contributions to American life continued even after more than a decade of official ‘retirement.’

Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest

As good a rifle company as any in the world, Easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army, kept getting the tough assignments responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D Day morning to the capture of Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden. In Band of Brothers, Ambrose tells of the men in this brave unit who fought, went hungry, froze, and died, a company that took 150 percent casualties and considered the Purple Heart a badge of office. Drawing on hours of interviews with survivors as well as the soldiers’ journals and letters, Stephen Ambrose recounts the stories, often in the men’s own words, of these American heroes.

D-Day: June 6, 1944, The Climactic Battle of World War II

On the basis of 1,400 oral histories from the men who were there, bestselling author and World War II historian Stephen E. Ambrose reveals for the first time anywhere that the intricate plan for the invasion of France in June 1944 had to be abandoned before the first shot was fired. The true story of D Day, as Ambrose relates it, is about the citizen soldiers junior officers and enlisted men taking the initiative to act on their own to break through Hitler’s Atlantic Wall when they realised that nothing was as they had been told it would be. D DAY is the brilliant, no holds barred, telling of the battles of Omaha and Utah beaches. Ambrose relives the epic victory of democracy on the most important day of the twentieth century.

Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

In this sweeping adventure story, Stephen E. Ambrose, the bestselling author od D Day, presents the definitive account of one of the most momentous journeys in American history. Ambrose follows the Lewis and Clark Expedition from Thomas Jefferson’s hope of finding a waterway to the Pacific, through the heart stopping moments of the actual trip, to Lewis’s lonely demise on the Natchez Trace. Along the way, Ambrose shows us the American West as Lewis saw it wild, awsome, and pristinely beautiful. Undaunted Courage is a stunningly told action tale that will delight readers for generations.

Americans at War

Stephen E. Ambrose, one of the foremost historians of the European theater of World War II, shares his vast knowledge of that conflict as well as the Civil War, Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War in this compelling narrative about the American way of war. From Vicksburg to My Lai, Ambrose recounts the history of these wars with extensive coverage of the battlefields and believable portrayals of those involved, creating the perspective that the country’s conflicts both reflect and shape American democratic society. ‘Compelling.’ The Indianapolis Star ‘Ambrose has the great gift of making history come alive.’ The Anniston Star ‘Fascinating…
insightful.’ The Houston Chronicle

American Heritage: New History of World War II

With the same epic narrative force that made his Undaunted Courage a New York Times bestseller with more than 417,000 copies in print, historian Stephen E. Ambrose has revised and updated The American Heritage New History of World War II for today’s students, history buffs, veterans, and fascinated readers. Seamlessly incorporating a significant amount of new text and captions into the original text by Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist C. L. Sulzberger, Ambrose has produced a comprehensive and riveting account of the six year global conflict that transformed world politics and shaped the course of modern history. Here are the personalities and strategies of Churchill, Roosevelt, Hitler, and Stalin brought vividly to life; the military tactics of Eisenhower, Rommel, and Patton; battles from El Alamein to D Day to Guadalcanal; completely new chapters on the atrocities of the Holocaust and the secret war of espionage and weaponry, much of it from top secret sources made available since the end of the Cold War. Hundreds of haunting images from renowned war photographers on the line of battle as well as new color maps illustrate Ambrose’s masterful text; together they brilliantly evoke in this definitive single volume the courage, commitment, military genius, and true horror of war. This new edition will endure as a major contribution to World War II scholarship from one of the most highly regarded and widely read historians of our time.

Citizen Soldiers: From the Normandy Beaches to the Surrender of Germany

In this riveting account, historian Stephen Ambrose continues where he left off in his 1 bestseller D Day. Ambrose again follows the individual characters of this noble, brutal, and tragic war, from the high command down to the ordinary soldier, drawing on hundreds of interviews to re create the war experience with startling clarity and immediacy. From the hedgerows of Normandy to the overrunning of Germany, Ambrose tells the real story of World War II from the perspective of the men and women who fought it.

The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys: The Men of WWII

A TRUE CELEBRATION OF HEROISM AND BRAVERY From America’s preeminent military historian, Stephen E. Ambrose, comes a brilliant telling of World War II in Europe, from D Day, June 6, 1944, to the end, eleven months later, on May 7, 1945. The author himself drew this authoritative narrative account from his five acclaimed books about that conflict, to yield what has been called ‘the best single volume history of the war that most of us will ever read.’

Lewis and Clark: Voyage of Discovery

Lewis & Clark Probably no one knows more about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark than bestselling author and historian Stephen Ambrose, and Lewis & Clark: Voyage of Discovery reflects his superb command of and deep affection for this epic American journey. Highlighted by Sam Abell’s stunning photographs, this engrossing historical narrative interweaves choice entries from the explorers’ journals with the author’s own latter day chronicle of how he and his family continue to discover the Trail today. Here is the whole extraordinary saga, from its visionary spark in Thomas Jefferson’s mind to the expedition itself, with its hardships and adventures. Ambrose’s own observations offer a modern look at the land and those who live in it, including the Native American descendants of the tribes who stood between Lewis and Clark and the Pacific Ocean. Superlative history, breathtaking photography, and an epic tale of exploration, endurance, and enterprise the classic ingredients that readers everywhere have come to expect from National Geographic.

Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals

From the author of Undaunted Courage and D Day comes this celebration of male friendship, taken both from the pages of history and from Ambrose’s own life.

Acclaimed historian Stephen Ambrose begins his examination with a glance inward he starts this book with his brothers, his first and forever friends, and the shared experiences that join them for a lifetime, overcoming distance and misunderstandings. He writes of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had a golden gift for friendship and who shared a perfect trust with his younger brother Milton in spite of their apparently unequal stations. With great feeling, Ambrose brings to life the relationships of the young soldiers of Easy Company who fought and died together from Normandy to Germany, and he describes with admiration three who fought in different armies on different sides in that war and became friends later. He recounts the friendships of Lewis and Clark and of Crazy Horse and He Dog, and he tells the story of the Custer brothers who died together at the Little Big Horn.

Comrades concludes with the author’s moving recollection of his own friendship with his father. ‘He was my first and always most important friend. I didn’t learn that until the end, when he taught me the most important thing, that the love of father son father son is a continuum, just as love and friendship are expansive.’

Witness to America: An Illustrated Documentary History of the United States from the Revolution to Today

‘The United States has to move very fast to even stand still.’

— John F. Kennedy

In this newly revised and updated edition, two of our most distinguished historians, Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley, bring together a stunning collection of eyewitness accounts and illustrations that chronicles the American experience from the perspectives of those who participated in its making.

Originally edited in 1939 by Henry Steele Commager and Allan Nevins, Witness to America includes more than 150 works drawn from more than two hundred years of American history, from the first shots of the Revolutionary War to the closing of the Twentieth Century. From Patrick Henry’s rousing ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!’ speech to the Virginia House of Burgesses, to John Brown’s stand at Harper’s Ferry; from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s promise of a New Deal to Neil Armstrong’s account of walking on the moon, this sweeping volume brings the milestones in American history vividly to life.

Here are unique and revealing selections from such historical figures as John Adams, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, as well as influential individuals including Booker T. Washington, Charles Lindbergh, Ernie Pyle, Rosa Parks, and Betty Friedan. While many of the selections come from notable citizens, most are from ordinary Americans–schoolteachers, students, homemakers, pioneers, and soldiers–who describe the everyday events that have epitomized American life over the course of its history.

Witness to America sweeps across the vast territory that is our nation, illuminating the movements, ideas, inventions, and events that have shaped and defined us–from the Pony Express to the PC; from the frontier to the rise of suburbia; from farming to modernization and the information age. Within these pages discover the art of whaling, learn about survival on the gold rush trail, experience the glory and trauma of war, and glean new insight on the great leaders. Here are debates and speeches, diary entries, letters, memoirs, court records, and more–including many first-person accounts that make history come alive as never before, such as a powerful description of the atomic explosion from a correspondent on the Enola Gay, and a young student’s evaluation of the changing roles of women at her high school. The selections explore the diverse facets of America’s cultural and political heritage and the constant shift and flux of everyday life, indelibly demonstrating both the variety and vitality of the American character.

Illustrated with spectacular photographs, drawings, and paintings and featuring a 74-minute audio CD with actual clips and dramatizations of many of the entries, Witness to America is a fascinating, highly readable, and entertaining collection that shows us what America is–and where it may go as it enters the next century.

Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869

Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks. The U.S. government pitted two companies the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose’s hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes vibrantly to life.

The Wild Blue: The Men And Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany, 1944-45

Stephen Ambrose is the acknowledged dean of the historians of World War II in Europe. In three highly acclaimed, bestselling volumes, he has told the story of the bravery, steadfastness, and ingenuity of the ordinary young men, the citizen soldiers, who fought the enemy to a standstill the band of brothers who endured together. The very young men who flew the B 24s over Germany in World War II against terrible odds were yet another exceptional band of brothers, and, in The Wild Blue, Ambrose recounts their extraordinary brand of heroism, skill, daring, and comradeship with the same vivid detail and affection. With his remarkable gift for bringing alive the action and tension of combat, Ambrose carries us along in the crowded, uncomfortable, and dangerous B 24s as their crews fought to the death through thick black smoke and deadly flak to reach their targets and destroy the German war machine.

The Good Fight: How World War II Was Won

Stephen E. Ambrose, one of the finest historians of our time, has written an extraordinary chronicle of World War II for young readers. From Japanese warplanes soaring over Pearl Harbor, dropping devastation from the sky, to the against all odds Allied victory at Midway, to the Battle of the Bulge during one of the coldest winters in Europe’s modern history, to the tormenting decision to bomb Nagasaki and Hiroshima with atomic weapons, The Good Fight brings the most horrific and most heroic war in history to a new generation in a way that’s never been done before. In addition to Ambrose’s accounts of major events during the war, personal anecdotes from the soldiers who were fighting on the battlefields, manning the planes, commanding the ships stories of human triumph and tragedy bring the war vividly to life. Highlighting Ambrose’s narrative are spectacular color and black and white photos, and key campaign and battlefield maps. Stephen E. Ambrose’s singular ability to take complex and multifaceted information and get right to its essence makes The Good Fight the book on World War II for kids.

To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian

Completed shortly before Ambrose’s untimely death, To America is a very personal look at our nation’s history through the eyes of one of the twentieth century’s most influential historians. Ambrose roams the country’s history, praising the men and women who made it exceptional. He considers Jefferson and Washington, who were progressive thinkers while living a contradiction as slaveholders, and celebrates Lincoln and Roosevelt. He recounts Andrew Jackson’s stunning defeat of a superior British force in the battle of New Orleans with a ragtag army in the War of 1812. He brings to life Lewis and Clark’s grueling journey across the wilderness and the building of the railroad that joined the nation coast to coast. Taking swings at political correctness, as well as his own early biases, Ambrose grapples with the country’s historic sins of racism; its ill treatment of Native Americans; and its tragic errors such as the war in Vietnam, which he ardently opposed. He contrasts the modern presidencies of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, and Johnson. He considers women’s and civil rights, immigration, philanthropy, and nation building. Most powerfully, in this final volume, Ambrose offers an accolade to the historian’s mighty calling.

The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today

On a map, the Mississippi River cuts America neatly in half coursing from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico and separating East from West. But the Mississippi is in fact the spine of our nation, says Stephen Ambrose. It knits the nation together and connects the heartland to the world. It is our great natural wonder, a priceless treasure bought for a fledgling America by the visionary Thomas Jefferson just 200 years ago. Distinguished historians Stephen Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley, with acclaimed National Geographic photographer Sam Abell, explore the length of the Mississippi from its mouth at Delacroix Island, Louisiana, to its source at Lake Itasca, Minnesota. The result is this lavish, entertaining, engrossing chronicle of the father of the waters, which has shaped the history, the culture, and the very landscape of America. Highlighted by Sam Abell’s evocative contemporary photographs and wonderful period illustrations, artwork, documents, and maps, this extraordinary panorama of America s heartland offers a lively, informative journey through the history and the landscape carved by the mighty Mississippi.

West Point: Two Centuries of Honor and Tradition

With contributions from Stephen Ambrose William F. Buckley, Jr. David Halberstam Arthur Miller George Plimpton Tom Wicker and other historians and writers Introduction by General H. Norman Schwarzkopf The year 2002 marks the bicentennial of the United States Military Academy at West Point. More than any other institution’s, the history of West Point is the story of America. Now commemorating this historic milestone is this authoritative publication of the Academy’s Association of Graduates. Featured here is one of the greatest collections ever of essays by world renowned historians and writers, plus 400 illustrations, nearly half in full color including famous and rarely seen paintings historic letters from cadets, treasured athletic memorabilia, and other artifacts. WEST POINT On the Fourth of July in the year 1802, a handful of cadets gathered on the tall banks of the Hudson River to celebrate the formal opening of the United States Military Academy at West Point. At the time, two instructors with few books taught the rudiments of military engineering in a building no larger than a country schoolhouse. From these inauspicious beginnings rose a national citadel that has produced America’s greatest military leaders and two presidents three, if you count the Confederacy’s Jefferson Davis. This is the story of ‘The Point,’ in the throes of war and the lull of peace, in its glory days and years of challenge. Inside WEST POINT you’ll relive: The growth years under Superintendent Sylvanus Thayer, who after taking office in 1817 rescued West Point from the brink of mutiny and rebuilt it into a model for military academies everywhere The Golden Age in the years before the Civil War, when the Academy educated a remarkable group of leaders that included Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, George McClellan, George Pickett, and William T. Sherman The Great War and after, when Superintendent Douglas MacArthur launched a short lived effort to reform the Academy, pleading ‘How long are we going on preparing for the War of 1812?’ World War II, when training on horseback finally gave way to drills on motorized vehicles, and the teaching of practical tactics finally replaced theory The Korea and Vietnam eras, when costly conflicts forced the institution through painful but necessary transitions The playing field as battlefield, when from 1944 to 1946 Red Blaik coached Army to three consecutive football championships, ably assisted by ‘Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside,’ Doc Blanchard and Glen Davis. You’ll read prize winning authors like Arthur Miller on his controversy filled appearance at Vietnam era West Point; George Plimpton on the boyhood memories of his great grandfather, General Adelbert Ames, a man who received the Congressional Medal of Honor after First Bull Run; Stephen E. Ambrose on Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Class of 1915, which produced 60 WW II generals; David Halberstam on the unique hunger that drives West Point students; and William F. Buckley, Jr., on the question that hovers over everything the Academy stands for: ‘Is America worth it?’ WEST POINT is the ultimate salute to an institution that represents both America’s belief in itself and its willingness to fight to defend that belief.

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