Stephen Ambrose

Stephen E. Ambrose
Ambrose in August 2001
Born	Stephen Edward Ambrose (1936-01-10)January 10, 1936 Lovington, Illinois, U.S.
Died	October 13, 2002(2002-10-13) (aged 66) Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, U.S.
Occupation	Historian, Author
Spouse	Moira Ambrose

Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history.

Beginning late in his life and continuing after his death, however, evidence and reports have continued to surface documenting longtime patterns of plagiarism and inaccuracies in many of his published writings and other work. In response to one of the early reports, Ambrose said he was not "out there stealing other people's writings." In the wake of his death, a reviewer for the New York Times did not absolve him completely, but opined that "he certainly deserved better from some of his envious peers" and credited the historian with reaching "an important lay audience without endorsing its every prejudice or sacrificing the profession's standards of scholarship."

Ambrose was born in Lovington, Illinois, to Rosepha Trippe Ambrose and Stephen Hedges Ambrose. His father was a physician who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Ambrose was raised in Whitewater, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Whitewater High School. His family also owned a farm in Lovington, Illinois, and vacation property in Marinette County, Wisconsin. He attended college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity and played on the University of Wisconsin football team for three years.