Historian Ambrose Admits Plagiarism

-- Library Journal, 01/14/2002

Historian Stephen Ambrose has admitted to plagiarism in two of his best-selling titles, while two of his other works have raised suspicions. Ambrose recently acknowledged that several passages in his latest book, Wild Blue (S. & S.), came from Thomas Childers’s 1995 Wings of Morning and that he had also cribbed from Jay Monaghan’s Custer in an earlier title, Crazy Horse and Custer. He did say, however, that he had footnoted the passages but not put quotations around them. Sharp-eyed critics now have called into question material from Ambrose’s Citizen Soldiers and his Richard Nixon biography, which contain text hauntingly similar to those found in other writers’ works. Ambrose has not commented on the latest allegations, nor has Simon & Schuster, his publisher.