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''Nothing Like It In the World'' is a narrative history of the planning and construction of the Pacific Railroad during the 1860s which connected the San Francisco Bay and Council Bluffs, Iowa by rail.〔(Executive Order of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, Fixing the Point of Commencement of the Pacific Railroad at Council Bluffs, Iowa. dated March 7, 1864. ) (38th Congress, 1st Session SENATE Ex. Doc. No. 27)〕 Written by popular historian Stephen Ambrose, it was first published in August 2000, by Simon & Schuster. ==Editing and fact checking issues== 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.〔(''New York Times'' Best Seller List ) September 17, 2000〕 However as were many of Ambrose's other late career works (particularly the fifteen books released between 1990 and 2003, 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.〔Winkler, Karen (''"Another Blow to the Reputation of Stephen Ambrose"'' ) The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 23, 2010〕 Although Ambrose was a retired University history professor, the book was written as a non-academic "popular history" aimed at a large general interest audience. As such its manuscript was not formally vetted and/or peer reviewed for accuracy and sourcing by any outside scholars and other experts on railroad history prior to its submission for publication as would have likely been the case if it had been published by a university press or under the aegis of an academic journal. Instead it was edited and fact checked by the publisher only by Simon & Schuster's Editorial Director, Alice Mayhew, Ambrose's longtime editor whom he also credited with originally suggesting the project to him.〔Ambrose, Stephen ''"Nothing Like It in the World"'' Acknowledgments, p 7〕〔(''"Alice Mayhew"'' ) Profile, Cityfile New York〕〔Secor, Laura ("ON PUBLISHING; Muse of the Beltway Book" ) The ''New York Times'' June 27, 2004〕 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.〔Rosenblatt, Roger (''"When the Hero Takes A Fall"'' ) TIME Magazine, January 13, 2002〕 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. The most extensive of those papers was first reported in a front page article published in ''The Sacramento Bee'' on January 1, 2001, entitled ''Area Historians Rail Against Inaccuracies in Book''〔Barrows, Matthew "Area Historians Rail Against Inaccuracies in Book" The ''Sacramento Bee'', January 1, 2001〕 that listed more than sixty instances identified as "significant errors, misstatements, and made-up quotes" in the book which were documented in the detailed December 2000, fact checking study entitled "The Sins of Stephen E. Ambrose" compiled by three longtime Western US railroad historians, researchers, consultants, and collectors who specialize in the Pacific Railroad and related topics.〔Graves, G.J., Strobridge, E.T., & Sweet, C.N.(''The Sins of Stephen E. Ambrose'' ) The Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum (CPRR.org), December 19, 2000〕〔Stobridge E. (2002). (Stephen Ambrose: Off the Rails ). ''History News Network''.〕〔Ringle, Ken ("Stephen Ambrose and the Rights of Passage" ) The ''Washington Post'', January 11, 2002, p. C1〕 On January 11, 2001, ''Washington Post'' columnist Lloyd Grove reported in his column, "The Reliable Source", that a co-worker had found a "serious historical error" in the same book that "a chastened Ambrose" promised to correct in future editions.〔Grove, Lloyd (''"The Reliable Source"'' ) ''The Washington Post'', January 11, 2001〕 A number of journal reviews also sharply criticized the research and fact checking in the book. Among academic reviewers, Notre Dame University history professor (Walter Nugent ) observed that it contained "annoying slips" such as mislabeled maps, inaccurate dates, geographical errors, and misidentified word origins,〔Nugent, Walter (Review: ''Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869'' by Stephen E. Ambrose, ) ''The Journal of American History'', vol. 88, no. 2 (September 2001), p. 657.〕 while (Don L. Hofsommer ) of St. Cloud University, the author of eleven books on the history of railroads in the American West, agreed that the book "confuses facts" and that "The research might best be characterized as 'once over lightly'."〔Hofsommer, Don L. Review ''Technology and Culture'', vol. 43, no. 1 (January 2002), pp. 169-170.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nothing Like It in the World」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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