Band of Brothers

I went into this one a little reluctantly after reading this little article about author Stephen Ambrose and his tendency to take liberties with history. Reading Band of Brothers, I was acutely aware of statements that were not clearly founded or that bordered on self indulgent. The descriptions of Captain Herbert Sobel (portrayed by David Schwimmer in the HBO series...not an easily forgettable character) are very biased. There is enough direct evidence in the book to condemn the guy as a poor leader/asshole. I don't need Ambrose to provide added commentary. This is a touchy area for historians, from what I've read. I can imagine it is a constant struggle to write a compelling, vibrant account of history without crossing over into editorializing. But it's certainly possible, and preferable. Ambrose's style in Band of Brothers seems a little indulgent to me, and it is at best distracting. There is no need, with such a tremendous story already there and such personal source material, for a color commentary from the author.

The book is about Easy Company, part of the 101st US Airborne division during WWII. Ambrose spent years interviewing the surviving members of Easy and draws heavily from these talks, as well as from journals and memoirs.

I ended up being most interested in supplementary writing Ambrose includes in the book. Private David Webster kept detailed journals throughout the war; his writing is featured often, and is a breath of fresh air. There are also lots of passages from two books that I'd like to read now:

Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of the 101st Airborne Division
(L. Rapport and A. Northwood Jr.)
The Warriors: Reflections on Men in Battle (J. Glenn Gray)

The excerpts from The Warriors in particular offer a more thoughtful take on the questions brought up in war and soldiering. I'm more interested in this type of focus. Ambrose seems to jump back and forth from ill-structured descriptions of Easy's campaigns to grapplings with the band-of-brothers idea that I usually found to be rather generic.

I will hunt down a copy of The Warriors and read that. And then let you know what I think. In the meantime, Band of Brothers has some good parts, mostly thanks to Ambrose's sources, but as a whole was less than I'd hoped it would be.