Skip to main content

Coming Up In American Heritage…

March 2023
1min read

Theodore Roosevelt and the politics of personality…

In an age in which most of the world had never even heard the term “charisma,” T.R.—ebullient, vigorous, articulate—was the living definition of the word. In a witty and provocative essay, Edmund Morris (whose The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt won the Pulitzer prize for biography in 1980) gives us a telling glimpse of a President who loved his job and was “so good at it that the … people loved him for loving it.”

The promise and the peril…

While Americans have come to accept it—or reject it—as a commonplace of modern life, only a generation has passed since we entered the age of nuclear power. In a special three-part portrait, Richard Rhodes reminds us of the complex and sometimes controversial events which led to the construction of the first nuclear power reactor in the United States in 1957; Larry L. Meyer tells of the great uranium rush of the 1950’s—during which more man-hours were spent hunting that precious element than were spent seeking all other metals since man fashioned his first pick and shovel; and Professor David Rose offers energy lessons to be learned from history.

The brink of war…

In a very special portfolio of photographs, many of them never before published, we present a selection of scenes of a nation moving toward tragedy: Union and Confederate troops in training, camp life on both sides, intimate glimpses of the men who are about to do the killing—and dying. All these pictures have been culled from a collection painstakingly gathered over the past six years.

Plus…

Wallace Stegner on the rise and fall of a Utah pleasure dome; Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., on I wo Jima; the very first American sex survey; and much more, all of it richly illustrated.

We hope you enjoy our work.

Please support this 72-year tradition of trusted historical writing and the volunteers that sustain it with a donation to American Heritage.

Donate

Stories published from "April/May 1981"

Authored by: Bernard A. Weisberger

AN INTERVIEW WITH C. VANN WOODWARD

Authored by: The Editors

The Photographic Record of a Western Success Story

Authored by: James W. Wensyel

Encamped above the Hudson for the last, hard winter of the Revolution, the officers of the Continental Army began to talk mutiny. It would be up to their harried commander to defend the most precious principle of the infant nation—the supremacy of civilian rule .

He could build castles at his whim, but the ancient home of a small band of monks defeated him

Authored by: Gerald Carson

WHEN JOSEPH KNOWLES STRIPPED TO THE BUFF AND SLIPPED INTO THE MAINE WOODS IN 1913, HE HOPED TO LEAD THE NATION BACK TO NATURE.

An insider’s account of a startling— and still controversial—investigation of the Allied bombing of Germany

Authored by: Louis Auchincloss

Few men—foreign or native born—have ever understood us better than this infinitely curious, inveterate Visitor from England

Featured Articles

Famous writers including Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts turned Sleepy Hollow Cemetery into our country’s first conservation project.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.  

The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.

Roast pig, boiled rockfish, and apple pie were among the dishes George and Martha enjoyed during the holiday in 1797. Here are some actual recipes.

Born during Jim Crow, Belle da Costa Greene perfected the art of "passing" while working for one of the most powerful men in America.