The E-Sylum:  Volume 5, Number 2, January 13, 2002, Article 4

AMBROSE ACCUSED OF PLAGIARISM

  How close is too close?  An article published on Forbes.com
  accuses popular author Stephen Ambrose of plagiarism.

  "Judging from his book sales, Stephen Ambrose must be
  America's favorite historian. But this week Ambrose finds
  himself enmeshed in controversy.  First, The Weekly Standard
  revealed that The Wild Blue, his current bestseller, contains
  words and phrases borrowed from another author, without
  quote marks.  Then Forbes.com identified three earlier
  Ambrose books that fit the same pattern."

  "After The Weekly Standard report appeared, Forbes.com
  identified Ambrose's Crazy Horse and Custer as lifting words
  and phrases from a source in a similar fashion. That report
  prompted several e-mails from readers nominating other
  Ambrose books for inspection.

  Among them was a note from military historian Joseph
  Balkoski, who said he was "very disappointed and somewhat
  depressed" when Citizen Soldiers came out in 1997, and he
  came across certain passages that relied heavily on his 1989
  book Beyond the Beachhead. "The writing seemed very
  familiar,  and much to my astonishment, it was my own," he
  said today in an interview. "

  http://www.forbes.com/2002/01/10/ambroseintro.html
  http://www.forbes.com/2002/01/09/0109ambrose.html
  http://www.forbes.com/2002/01/09/0109ambrose_2.html

  So, numismatic authors, mind your manners and don't
  forget the quotes and attribution when using material from
  other sources.    You know, I've sometimes wondered if
  past articles in the numismatic press were recycled
  from the work of earlier writers.  It's that sense of deja vu
  when reading yet another article about a given subject.
  If the article doesn't include some recent discovery, then
  it could have been written ten or twenty years ago and
  no reader would be the wiser. It's so hard to check
  since the combination of an extensive back issue collection
  and decent index is rare if not nonexistent.

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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