stephen e ambrose nothing like it in the world

Several longer form papers and commentaries were also produced by well-known experts on the history of the Pacific Railroad which documented in detail that the book was rife with factual errors, misquotes, contradictions, demonstrably misleading and/or inaccurate statements, and unsupported conclusions. While originally well received by the public at large, many reviews of the book by professional historians and other scholars, researchers, and experts in the field appearing in the weeks and months after its release were highly critical of the work as being poorly researched and edited as well as inadequately fact checked. The manuscript was also not peer reviewed for accuracy and sourcing by any other experts on railroad history or outside scholars as would have likely been the case if it had been published by a university press or under the aegis of an academic journal, but instead it was edited and fact checked only by publisher Simon & Schuster's Editorial Director, Alice Mayhew, Ambrose's longtime editor whom he also credited with originally suggesting the project to him. While the manuscript was reviewed by the retired Valuation Engineer of the Southern Pacific Railroad who vetted and corrected all the errors made by Ambrose, none of these corrections were incorporated by the publisher and it was released with all the errors and misstatements intact. However as were many of Ambrose's other late career works (particularly the fifteen books released between 19, the year after his death), it was also produced under the auspices of (and copyrighted by) Ambrose-Tubbs Inc, the Ambrose family's Helena, MT, based owned and operated umbrella organization for his commercial activities.Īlthough Ambrose was a retired University history professor, the book was written as a non-academic 'popular history' aimed at a large general interest audience. When published in the late summer of 2000, Nothing Like It in the World was, like many of Ambrose's previous books, an immediate commercial success and quickly reached the 'Number 1' position on the New York Times Best Seller List (Non-Fiction) on September 17, 2000.

Stephen e ambrose nothing like it in the world