Band of Brothers
Stephen E. Ambrose (1936–2002) was born in Illinois and raised and educated in Wisconsin. From 1960 he was a history professor at colleges across the United States, latterly at the University of New Orleans, where he founded and led the Eisenhower Center; part of its mission was to collect oral histories from military veterans. He was also instrumental in founding the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, but is best remembered as one of America’s great military historians – work that led the Department of Defense to award him its Medal for Distinguished Public Service – and as the biographer of presidents Nixon and Eisenhower. The author of more than twenty-five books, ranging from the Civil War to the Cold War, he was honoured by the US Senate with a resolution commending Ambrose’s skill at ‘capturing the greatness of the American spirit in words’.
Cole C. Kingseed received his doctorate in history from Ohio State University and spent thirty years working for the United States Army, reaching the rank of colonel. He was chief of military history at West Point, where he is now professor emeritus. An expert on leadership and the Second World War, he is the author of books on the Suez crisis and the American Civil War, as well as the New York Times bestselling Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Dick Winters. A personal friend of Major Winters, Colonel Kingseed highlighted his relationship in Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers. In 2009 he received the Army Historical Foundation's Distinguished Writing Award.