5 Great Men Who Built Their Careers on Plagiarism

As anyone here at Cracked will tell you, without even the slightest provocation, writing is hard. When the strain of coming up with new material becomes too great to bear, a writer has two options: He can pepper his work with penis jokes and pictures of cute animals (see our entry on T.S. Eliot, below), or he can steal his words from a better writer.

Occasionally, a brilliant (or at least sort of clever) mind comes across a bad spell of writer's block and gives into the temptation to be a cheating plagiarist. Sometimes this blatant plagiarism ends up being the catalyst that launches their career like a rocket powered by lies.

What'd He Do?

In a nutshell, Ambrose invented pop history. He was the historical advisor on Saving Private Ryan and wrote the book Band of Brothers, that miniseries about WWII that starred the guy from Office Space.

"You know, the Nazis had little pieces of flair they made the Jews wear."

Ambrose also wrote award-winning biographies on Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon. If you've ever wanted to become a famous historian, chances are Stephen was one of your inspirations. Also, chances are you're a massive nerd.

What's the Problem?

In 1995, an almost unknown historian named Thomas Childers published the book Wings of Morning. It was a well-received but relatively obscure novel about the crew of a specific B-24 bomber during WWII.

Ambrose was a fan of the book and, as a firm believer that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, he proceeded to plagiarize the fuck out of it for his hit 2001 novel, The Wild Blue, which was the account of a different group of B-24 crewmen. Ambrose ripped off whole passages of text and stole several sentences and descriptions word for word. Then he got his book published and just sort of hoped no one would notice.

In the writing business, that's what we call "textual rape."

Show me on the table of contents where Dr. Ambrose touched you.

Unfortunately for Stephen, but fortunately for truth, he got caught. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard noticed what was going on and revealed it to the world. Ambrose was fast to respond.

He had cited Childers' book in his bibliography (although he hadn't come close to listing everything he 'borrowed' from his fellow historian's work) and basically claimed that he'd just "forgotten" to attribute the stolen passages in the text, like he was supposed to.

This chart comes from the Weekly Standard's article about Ambrose, written by Fred Barnes. See what we did there Stephen, you dead bastard? We gave the original author credit for something they fucking wrote.

Is That All?

For a little while, Stephen's apology was enough. Ambrose was famous for turning out books at an astonishing rate. He was the meth-addicted prostitute of popular history, turning tricks faster than anyone else on History Whore Blvd. Of course he was bound to make the occasional mistake. Most people considered the matter settled.

Mark Lewis, of Forbes.com, was not one of those people. He read the first story about Ambrose and, like a good investigative journalist, proceeded to tear apart everything the pop historian had written in his search for the truth.

Lewis first hit gold when he found several blatant thefts in the book Crazy Horse and Custer, which Ambrose pretended to write in 1995. For that novel, Ambrose molested the work of esteemed historical writer Jay Monagham. Here's an excerpt from the Forbes article:

MONAGHAM: "On August 28, 1859, Custer returned to West Point. Cadet James Barroll Washington, a great-great-grandnephew of George Washington, entered that year. He remembered hearing the crowd shout, 'Here comes Custer!' The name meant nothing to him, but he turned, and saw a slim, immature lad with unmilitary figure, slightly rounded shoulders, and gangling walk."

AMBROSE: "When he returned to West Point, Cadet James B. Washington, a relative of George Washington, remembered hearing the crowd shout, 'Here comes Custer!' The name meant nothing to Washington, who was just entering the Academy, but he turned and saw a slim, immature lad with unmilitary figure, slightly rounded shoulders, and gangling walk, surrounded by back-slapping, laughing friends."

The Vanilla Ice to Monagham's Queen (featuring David Bowie), Ambrose exerted less effort covering his ass than a high school student who just discovered Wikipedia.

"Holy shit. Everything I want to say about The Grapes of Wrath is RIGHT HERE."

Ambrose's web of lies didn't end there, either. In total, seven of his books were found to contain some degree of plagiarism. His fucking college thesis was even loaded down with other people's unattributed writing. The most famous historian in the world built his career on a foundation of deception.

Did He Pay?

He really didn't. Evidence of his wrongdoing came up very shortly before his death from lung cancer in 2002.

The real tragedy here is that Ambrose's work which, plagiarism aside, was incredibly significant, has been tainted by association with his crimes. Dr. Ambrose was not a bad writer or a bad historian, but his flexible ethics and lack of regard for his fellow writers sent him down the path to infamy.

What'd He Do?

T.S. Eliot wrote several great, enduring poems, such as "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" which had a ridiculous title, and "The Hollow Men," which, we were depressed to discover, wasn't about a naked, invisible, murdering lunatic. Perhaps his greatest work was a poem entitled, "The Waste Land," which was a haunting statement of his disillusionment with the post-war era. It was a literary milestone, and is still celebrated today as one of the greatest works of poetry in history.

What's the Problem?

The problem with this is that Eliot didn't write "The Waste Land." Not all of it anyway. As it turns out, the idea behind "The Waste Land," and a fair amount of its content, was plagiarized from an almost unknown American poet named Madison Cawein.

Cawein worked hard all of his youth, scrimping and saving and putting aside enough money so that he could begin finally working on his true love: poetry. He put out several volumes of work that is very well regarded, but he never gained any recognition and died almost unknown. Which just goes to show you that, if you work hard in this country and believe in yourself, you'll die alone and under appreciated.

He's SO obscure, that Google Image Search doesn't even have a picture of him. This is a wiener dog.

Cawein's poem was even named "Waste Land." It was first published in the same issue of Poetry as Eliot's "Love Song," and contains several metaphors that were later used word for word by Eliot in his "The Waste Land." (Eliot's lucky he died before trying to publish his "The Romeo and Juliet" and "The Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman.")

But the poor, unappreciated Madison Cawein wasn't the only person Eliot stole from. This passage from "The Waste Land:" "The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne / Glowed on the marble," was slightly altered but still stolen from Shakespeare, who wrote, "The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne / Burn'd on the water".

Eliot's line, "Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song," was stolen entirely from Edmund Spenser's "Prothalamion."

Is That All?

Most of "The Waste Land" was just cobbled together out of quotes from other writers. Until very recently, most scholars have been happy to simply chalk these up as "allusions" to the work of other authors. For a long time, it was regarded as something poets just did, as a way of honoring their influences.

On a slightly related note, tune in next Tuesday, where we'll be streaming a high-resolution allusion to Lord of the Rings movies all day!

Did He Pay?

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal"

This is a quote from Eliot himself. You see, T.S. was rich, famous and beloved the world over. While he was alive, everyone just sort of ignored all of the evidence that he was a tremendous bastard. He died renowned as one of the greatest poets in all of history, which he was, but he was also a plagiarizing cockbag who denied a much worthier artist a place in history.

What'd He Do?

We're not saying that King wasn't an incredible person who did more to advance the human race than most of us can ever hope to do. We're just saying that he was also a plagiarizing butthole.

What's the Problem?

For starters, his own university admits that his doctoral thesis, the very foundation of his career, was significantly plagiarized. Seriously. They had an official inquiry and everything.

"We had many of the same professors, we worked in the same atmosphere during our graduate studies," said John Cartwright, an MLK scholar and member of the committee that investigated his plagiarism allegations, "under no circumstances would the atmosphere under which he did his work condone what Doctor King did. It's incredible. He was not unaware of the correct procedure. This wasn't just done out of ignorance."

"Oh, I'm sorry, it must have slipped my mind while I was changing the fucking world.

Despite clear findings of plagiarism, the committee did not recommend he be posthumously stripped of his title, due to Dr. King's incredible services to the world. And due to their extreme fear of being beaten and castrated by hordes of angry MLK groupies.

Please don't hurt us.

The first allegations of King's plagiarism were hushed up, denied, or 'excused' by academia. However, the accusations continued to flow in. This timeline shows how the realization of King's plagiarism unfolded. Not only was his dissertation plagiarized, but many of his student papers and sermons were stolen in whole or in part from other writers.

The staff of the King Paper's Project at Stanford even admits that, "King's plagiarism was a general pattern evident in nearly all of his academic writings."

Is That All?

Perhaps the most notable example of King's plagiarism was the general tone, and several select lines from his famous "I Have a Dream," speech. Theodore Pappas presents a detailed accusation in his book, Plagiarism and the Culture War. Most of the issue centers around the closing lines.

Here's how King's speech ended;

"This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, 'My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.' And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring."

Compare that to a much earlier speech by another Civil Rights activist, Archibald Carey:

"We, Negro Americans, sing with all loyal Americans: My country 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, Land of the Pilgrims' pride From every mountainside Let freedom ring!

That's exactly what we mean--from every mountain side, let freedom ring. Not only from the Green Mountains and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire; not only from the Catskills of New York; but from the Ozarks in Arkansas, from the Stone Mountain in Georgia, from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia--let it ring not only for the minorities of the United States, but for the disinherited of all the earth--may the Republican Party, under God, from every mountainside, LET FREEDOM RING!"

Did He Pay?

Not during his lifetime. To be fair, it takes balls to accuse the greatest civil rights activist in history with plagiarism. Now, if you'll excuse us, we're all going to go hide in an undisclosed cave with a bunch of loaded guns, and enough crystal meth to keep us awake all year.