The Rutgers Living History Society (RLHS) will award the 2020-2021 Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award to bestselling author Doug Stanton. The RLHS Annual Meeting and presentation of the Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award will take place on Friday, October 8 at the College Avenue Student Center Multipurpose Room, from 9 AM to 11:30 AM, as a part of Rutgers Homecoming. Doug Stanton is a New York Times bestselling author, journalist, lecturer and screenwriter. As a journalist, he has worked as a contributing editor at Esquire and Outside and has written articles on history, travel, sports and entertainment for publications such as Sports Afield, Men's Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, TIME and Newsweek. He is the author of the nonfiction books In Harm’s Way, Horse Soldiers and The Odyssey of Echo Company. Stanton has appeared on PBS's "The Vietnam War," C-SPAN’s "American History," CNN, Discovery, A&E, History Channel, Fox News, NPR, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and NBC Nightly News. He lectures nationally to libraries, civic groups, writing and book clubs, and universities about subjects ranging from international affairs to writing techniques.
Drawing upon interviews with survivors of the World War II heavy cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis, Stanton wrote In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors, published in 2001 by
Henry Holt. After completing the secret mission to deliver atomic bomb components to U.S. forces on Tinian Island in the Central Pacific, the Indianapolis encountered a Japanese submarine while sailing to the Philippines on July 30, 1945. The Indianapolis was torpedoed and sank. Only 316 crew survived to be rescued out of the original total of 1,196 men onboard the ship. Over the course of his twenty-year association with the story of the Indianapolis, Stanton met nearly every survivor. He appeared alongside the veterans on The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, History Channel, Discovery and PBS's 2019 documentary "U.S.S. Indianapolis: The Final Chapter." Of the 124 survivors who were alive at the time of the publication of In Harm's Way, eleven survive to this day, revealing the importance of Stanton's work in chronicling the experiences of America's World War II generation.
In Harm’s Way earned Stanton international acclaim. The book remained on The New York Times bestseller list for over six months and also appeared as The Sunday Times (UK) bestseller. In Harm’s Way is required reading for U.S. naval officers. The audiobook won the History category of the 2017 Audie Award. First published in 2009 by Scribner, Stanton’s Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan explores the experiences of U.S. Special Forces soldiers in the early days of the war in Afghanistan. In researching for this book, Stanton traveled through the United States and Afghanistan and conducted over one hundred interviews of American service members, civilians and family members. Horse Soldiers appeared on the front page of the Sunday New York Times Book Review and spent three months at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list, as well as earning distinction as a New York Times bestselling audiobook and e-book. U.S. Army Special Forces at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School selected the book as required reading. Republished as 12 Strong: The Declassified True
Story of the Horse Soldiers, the book served as the basis for the 2018 Warner Bros. film 12 Strong, starring Chris Hemsworth and Michael Shannon. Turning his attention to the Vietnam War, Stanton used letters from the time and interviews with veterans to write The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War, published by Scribner in 2017. The Odyssey of Echo Company earned Stanton Military Times Best Book of The Year and the Society of Midlands Authors Best Nonfiction Book Award. Stanton cofounded the National Writers Series, a book festival that promotes dialogue between America’s best storytellers, and Front Street Writers, a workshop for public school students that provides educational credits at no cost. The Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award is awarded annually by the RLHS. The RLHS is an honor society affiliated with the Rutgers Oral History Archives, the oral history center in the Department of History in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University. Previous recipients of the Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award include Tom Brokaw, Steven Spielberg, Studs Terkel, Rick Atkinson, Ken Burns, David Isay, Elizabeth and Michael Norman, Isabel Wilkerson, Michael Beschloss, Peter Bergen, Jaqueline Dowd Hall, Ric Burns, John Whiteclay Chambers II, James Bradley and Deborah Gray White.