Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 49, number 4, summer, 1966

              REFIGHTING THE LAST BATTLE:
The Pitfalls of Popular History
By Stephen E. Ambrose
T^HERE IS a current view that professional -'- historians scorn the work of the more popular amateurs. Actually they only do so in public. Privately, like everyone else, they read and enjoy the books of authors like Barbara Tuchman, Bruce Catton, John To¬ land, and the earlier Cornelius Ryan. And they often learn from the amateurs, since the amateurs' books combine drama, anec¬ dotal detail, a masterful narrative, and some¬ times a sharp analysis. Using the parapher¬ nalia of the best-selling novel—flashbacks, unbearable suspense, and countless vignettes —the popular historians create a mood and produce works of art far more interesting than fiction.
The best of these historians is Bruce Cat- ton. He does minute research into the lives of the little people of his story, and he weaves the incidents he finds into the fabric of his main narrative as skillfully as any Lower East Side tailor ever repaired a piece of cloth. Catton has absolutely no peer in tak¬ ing a scene—say, the theft of some chickens by Sherman's bummers from a Georgia belle •—and using it to illustrate the impact of a great historical event on a society. His work carries with it the additional bonus of being accurate.
To the extent that Tuchman, Toland, Ryan, and others follow Catton's lead, they delight the public without infuriating the scholar. Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day is a good example.   Ryan was sure of his subject, han¬
dled it deftly, and produced a distinguished account of Operation Overlord. The event was inherently dramatic, and once General Dwight Eisenhower had made the decision to go ahead, events were out of SHAEF's control. With justice and reason Ryan there¬ after concentrated on the battle itself and on those who fought it—the little men of history. Both his research and his ability to organize it were impressive.
In his latest work. The Last Battle (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1966. Pp. 571. $7.50), Ryan attempts to handle a much larger theme. He undertakes to tell us not only how the war in Europe ended, but also why it ended the way it did. He takes the ad¬ ditional major risk of becoming a judge, implying that certain decisions were monu¬ mental errors which brought on horrendous results. Another shortcoming is simple in¬ accuracy.
All of this is deeply disturbing to scholars, because Ryan's work is the one which will be read by the literate public and will there¬ fore set, for at least a decade, the public attitude towards the end of the war against Germany. Ryan's The Longest Day sold over 4,000,000 copies. The Last Battle, already a Book-of-the-Month Club choice and a Reader's Digest condensation, will probably sell as well. It will also be a moving picture. The detailed, accurate, highly analytical, but for¬ mally written official histories of the British and the Americans sell a few thousand copies
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