Most helpful customer reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A GREAT, EASY, INSPIRING READ, Mar 16 2004
I'm not a historian, but I am a son, and I have a father and many friends. This book, using his own life and his influential father as well as the lives of the Eisenhower boys, the Custer boys, Crazy Horse and He Dog, Eisenhower and Patton, and Nixon, poignantly and emotionally demonstrates the immense joy, satisfaction, and power that is to be had in the relationships that can only be shared between father and son and between two best friends. Reading Ambrose's heartfelt musings, I was often reminded of my own relationship with my father. I bought him one and he had the same reaction, thinking of both his father and me. Having read the majority of Ambrose's works from which he pulled the short chapters for Comrades, I was perhaps even that much more moved by the essays. Using quick summaries and then providing insight gained from his years of research and life experience, Ambrose shows how the intimacy among friends and family drive can help drive us to much greater heights than would have been possible alone. I strongly recommend this book.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Short, touching account of unheralded male friendships, Oct 2 2003
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.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
True Teaching of the History of Friendship, May 25 2003
Stephen Ambrose extracts Famous and Not-So-Famous friendships from the archives of time, and uses History to teach a valuable lesson. Ambrose demonstrates that great people in History have overcome great obstacles, bolstered sometimes only by the loyalty of close friends. His chapter on Veterans was particularly inspiring, especially in his description of how two former Allied Soldiers -- one of whom was Richard Winters of Easy Company -- verbally defended a lecturing former German World War II officer from the ignorant accusations of a self-righteous student years after the war. Also inspiring was the chapter on the friendship of Lewis and Clark, as well as that of the lasting effects of the bonding of the men of Easy Company. This is a wonderful work.
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