Product Description

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."

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #205567 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Amazon.com Review
This tender book about male friendship will probably surprise those readers who know Stephen Ambrose best for his histories of World War II and biography of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Born in 1936, Ambrose acknowledges in the introduction to his memoir that men of his generation do not speak or write easily about their feelings. Yet male bonding is a strong theme in all of his work, as selections from previous writings on Lewis and Clark, Richard Nixon, Crazy Horse, and General Custer that are included in Comrades prove. What is more interesting, however, is the more personal material on Ambrose's two brothers (their youthful competitiveness mellowed into mature devotion), fellow historian Gordon Mueller ("my dearest and closest friend"), and several college buddies. After losing touch with each other during the harried years of career building and child rearing, these men rediscovered intimacy in middle age. Most moving of all is the closing chapter on Ambrose's father, an old-fashioned authority figure and disciplinarian quick to criticize his sons, but always available to sustain and guide them. The warming of that rather stern relationship is clearly one of the great joys of his son's adult life. It makes a fitting finale to a dignified but strikingly sweet memoir. --Wendy Smith

From Library Journal
Ambrose, best-known for his studies of men in battle, here addresses the subject of male friendship. Beginning with brothers (his own and Dwight and Milton Eisenhower), he also describes the friendship of Crazy Horse and He Dog as an example of friendship between nonrelations. He then gives an account of his father that is especially moving. Finally, he describes the friendship that many English and American veterans have forged with their German counterparts since 1945. This articulate and heartfelt tribute to male friendship is wonderfully read by the author; his gruff, Midwestern voice is really rather pleasant to hear. Ambrose (Band of Brothers) is at ease when reading, and this performance has a charming masculine quality to it. Libraries where Ambrose's works are in demand should at least consider this work.
-Michael T. Fein, Central Valley Community Coll., Lynchburg, VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
No, Comrades does not mean historian Ambrose has gone commie on us. Rather, he delves into male friendship through a reworking of selections from his own works that exemplify male bonding and adds reflections about his friends, starting with his family. The Ambrose boys were argumentative: long silences followed their disagreements about Vietnam. His father wanted Stephen to be a physician, not a historian. No one thing brought the clan back together, but the author credits time and maturity--and one heartfelt toast of the father to his sons. From Ambrose's books step the figures of Ike and Lewis and Clark, examples of men who could make balanced friendships, and Richard Nixon, who, in a gregarious profession, had no friends. After bringing two sets of friendships to battle at Little Big Horn (George Custer and his two admiring brothers versus Crazy Horse and He Dog), Ambrose recalls the course of his friendships that began in college or on tours of D-Day battlefields. Quickly perusable, congenial confessions for the author's huge readership. Gilbert Taylor

Customer Reviews

Touching, but expected more from Ambrose...
As a HUGE fan of Ambrose, I feel a little guilty of criticizingthe work. But I paid for it, so here goes.

It was a wonderfulbook in concept, but like the Kirkus review said, a tad "shallow", and in my estimation, priced more than it was worth -- this is a seven dollar book, not a seventeen dollar book (my price). I kind of felt cheated, as Ambrose recycled a tad too much information from previous efforts, without seemingly doing enough new, groundbreaking, or original exposition on the complexities of male friendships. It feels like our favorite historian "mailed this one in", leaving the hard writing for some other work.

I also felt that Ambrose was a little condescending at times about his own experiences. Can't recall specific details now, but I remember feeling oddly disconnected from some of the male bonding experiences he touts from his own youth, not the least of which was this business about joining this frat over that. (Big deal.) But I suppose judging our own nostalgic memories with superlatives is a right we all reserve for ourselves, and I'm no different.

Nevertheless, devoted fans of Ambrose will enjoy the book...or maybe not. Perhaps the parts Ambrose writes about his friends, his brothers, and his father are a bit too confessional -- more than we're interested in knowing.

If you're a first time Ambrose reader, start with a different book, say Citizen Soldiers, and then check this one out from the library before you head out of town for a weekend of easy reading.

A quick read with a lasting impression
I picked up this book in the airport as I headed off for a 4 hour flight. I knew that given its author it would be an interesting "quick read". I had enjoyed many other books by Ambrose and looked forward to another.

In this short compilation Ambrose explores the relationships between men as "brothers, fathers, heroes, sons and pals". Similar to his other works, this book examines its topics through the lives of specific people -- Ambrose himself, his father and brothers, and others he has met or researched. What emerges is a theme of loyalty, fealty and connection that is unique and binding.

True to my estimation this book was enjoyable and easy to read. Ambrose draws few conclusions but rather allows the reader to discover the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of these disparate relationships.

In an age where pop psychologists diagnose and prescribe broad generalisms about gender and relationships it is nice to find someone who appreciates men for who and what they are. I look forward to Ambrose's next work.

Short, touching account of unheralded male friendships
Author Stephen E. Ambrose has made quite a career out of his historical writings. Viewed to be one of the most, if the most, pre-eminent World War II historians, Ambrose has written many captivating accounts of the brave men who have taken up arms in defense of this country and freedom. He has also chronicled some of lesser-detailed, though quite famous, events in U.S. history, such as the building of the transcontinental railroad, the journey of Lewis and Clark, and the parallel lives of General Custer and Crazy Horse until their fateful meeting at Little Big Horn. What is common in Ambrose' writing, and what makes the stories so compelling and accessible to average reader, is that he understands the importance of the human emotions and common bonds produced by the strong friendships of the men whose lives are immortalized in history. His seminal work, "Band of Brothers" is THE classic example of this.

Ambrose has chronicled these male friendships in many of his books, but has felt the need to extract some of these stories and have them stand alone in a separate volume on the strength and importance of male friendships. The result is "Comrades", a sometimes slow, but mostly compelling anthology of the power of male friendships that took place in form of fathers, sons, brothers, and colleagues for famous historical figures. "Comrades" is a relatively short book, with each chapter dedicating just a brief synopsis of these friendships. However, they serve as a primer that makes the reader want to dive deeper in the stories behind these men. One can read the short about the relationship between General Dwight Eisenhower and his brother Milton, an academic man who was his closest confidante, advisor, champion, and friend and be compelled to flesh out the relationship further by reading the Eisenhower biography. The stories about the Custer Brothers and of Crazy Horse and He Dog merely whet the appetite for the stories that permeate "Crazy Horse and Custer". The same can be said for Meriweather Clark and William Clark and "Undaunted Courage".

It could be argued that a book like "Comrades" is nothing more than a marketing gimmick to get people to buy other Stephen Ambrose books. That is a shortsighted and cynical interpretation. "Comrades" is a wonderful primer that makes these stories accessible to the common reader and if it spurs them to seek out other books about these same subjects, then that is just a testament to the power of these stories and skill of Ambrose' writing.