Skip to main content

Featured Essays

While Robert Morris is remembered as the "financier of the Revolution," his partner and former boss, Thomas Willing, has been lost to history despite his own contributions to early American business and finance. 

Decades before the Ayatollah, even before the shah, early Americans found themselves enchanted with Iranian culture, politics, and history.

By organizing weekly gatherings of political leaders and citizens, she proved democracy works best when rivals see one another as human beings.

William Seward's 1868 attempt to acquire the Danish territory was the country's first, but not the last. 

America 250!

Patriots or Terrorists? | Fall 2008, Vol 58, No 5

By Edwin G. Burrows

The Lost Story of Revolutionary War POW’s

American Heritage Logo

Samuel Adams Starts a Revolution | May 2023, Vol 68, No 3

By Stacy Schiff

Enlisting an army of alter egos, Adams used the Boston press to make the case for American independence and to orchestrate a burgeoning rebellion.

sam

The Battle that Led to Victory at Yorktown | Fall 2019 - George Washington Prize Books, Vol 64, No 5

By Nathaniel Philbrick

Largely overlooked in histories of the Revolution, the Battle of the Chesapeake is in fact one of the most important naval engagements in history, leading to the American victory at Yorktown.

American Heritage Logo

What Does “Consent of the Governed” Actually Mean? | , Vol 71, No 3

By Gordon S. Wood

Our Founders profoundly transformed the way people participate in government.

constitutional congress

Classic Essays from the Archives

Searching for “Shenandoah” | Winter 2022, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3

By Bruce Watson

It's one of the oldest folk ballads in our national songbook, but where did it come from? The answer is complex, multi-layered, American.

trapper family

“Medic!” | November 1997, Vol 48, No 7

By Stephen E. Ambrose

In a hard war, theirs may have been the hardest job of all. Along with Army doctors and nurses, they worked something very close to a miracle in the European theater.

medic

America: Experiment or Destiny? | June 1977, Summer 2025, Vol 28, No 4

By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

We can take pride in our nation, not as we pretend to a commission from God and a sacred destiny, but as we struggle to fulfill our deepest values in an inscrutable world.

american destiny

SUPPORT AMERICAN HERITAGE BY BUYING A NEW EBOOK!