On Thu, January 20, 2011 12:01, John Lee wrote:
> So who wrote it and why haven't they come forward?
>
> John Lee

That is a particulaly odd question to ask.  Nobody ever claimed that
Ambrose hired someone to write for him or that he simply reprinted
entire books published by living authors.

Based on the research done in the early 2000s by Forbes Magazine and
a number of other interested parties muany of Ambrose's works were
pastiches, each drawing from a number of unacknowledged sources. 
Some of these sources, particularly in the case of Ambrose's
American Civil War histories, were quite old and the original
authors long dead and forgotten.

Indeed, the scandal eventually came to light because Ambrose, as his
reputation increased, became considerably less cautious about whom
he 'borrowed' from.  For instance, a considerable section of his
book "The Wild Blue" was taken from a private memoir penned by a
USAAF veteran and sent by its author to Ambrose for critical
comment.

Upon reading 'The Wild Blue' said veteran was surprised to see much
of his own work reproduced verbatim therein and with no mention of
his name anywhere.  Taking the matter up with Ambrose resulted in an
unsavoury debacle wherein Ambrose attempted various forms of denial
and suppression of the man's complaints. However, those complaints
led directly to Ambrose's eventual exposure.

Once Ambrose's facade of respectability was cracked then a great
deal of Amborse's other writings were demonstrated to be
misrepresentations of Ambrose's own work.


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