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Featured Essays
A private pilot named Kenneth Arnold kicked off a worldwide craze when he claimed he saw a string of shiny saucers fly past Mount Rainier in 1947.
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.
America 250!
Lafayette: A Hero Among Heroes | Summer 2021, Vol 65, No 5
By Harlow Giles UngerNo figure in the Revolutionary era inspired as much affection and reverence as Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette
Did Hurricanes Save America? | September 2020, Vol 65, No 5
By Eric Jay DolinThe outcome of the American Revolution may have been affected by catastrophic storms in the deadliest hurricane season in recorded history.
With Little Less Than Savage Fury | Fall 2010, Vol 60, No 3
By Thomas B. AllenAmerica’s first civil war took place during the Revolution, an ultra-violent, family-splitting, and often vindictive conflict between "patriots" and loyalists.
“The Die is Now Cast” | November/December 2024, Vol 69, No 5
By Joseph J. EllisAmerican resistance to British authority developed with stunning speed 250 years ago in response to George III’s inflexibility.
They Turned the World Upside Down | Winter 2026, Vol 71, No 1
By Richard BellAmerican patriots began a conflict that spread around the globe.
Classic Essays from the Archives
"The Sparck of Rebellion" | Winter 2010, Summer 2025, Vol 59, No 4
By Douglas BrinkleyBadly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.
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.
1619: The Year That Shaped America | Winter 2019, Vol 64, No 1
By James HornFour hundred years ago this year, two momentous events happened in Britain’s fledgling colony in Virginia: the New World’s first democratic assembly convened, and an English privateer brought kidnapped Africans to sell as slaves. Such were the conflicted origins of modern America.
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