Skip to main content

Different Visions

March 2023
1min read

I am greatly disappointed by the limited-vision, probably politically biased kind of article represented by “Can History Save Us from a Depression?” which appeared in your February issue.

Granted, economists and those who pose as economic experts ought not be taken seriously. But why any virtually unknown “expert,” who claims to have been a significant adviser to the Reagan administration (what went wrong?), should be interviewed by the president of your publication and given prominent space is a puzzle and a discredit to the integrity of what I expect of American Heritage.

Mr. Jude Wanniski’s admitted technique of searching for a rationale after discovering he possessed an incontrovertible theory is truly a parody of all economist jokes. Mr. Timothy C. Forbes apparently does not have a sense of humor.

Let me try this one on you. I have absolute evidence that the Great Depression ended not with the advent of World War II, which many believe, but when they removed the banana flavor from Twinkles.

The theory cannot be challenged. I’m still searching for the rationale. And space in your publication.

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 1988"

Authored by: Ben Yagoda

Wherever you go in search of history, there’s a good chance the first thing you reach for will be a road map. And road maps have a history too.

Authored by: Thomas Fleming

The old school is alive with the memory of men like Lee, Grant, Pershing, and Eisenhower

Authored by: Wayne Fields

A hundred and fifty years ago, a sea of grass spread from the Ohio to the Rockies; now only bits and pieces of that awesome wilderness remain for the traveler to discover.

Authored by: Tamara Thornton

Living in, and with, the universal Midwestern latticework

Authored by: Joseph Monninger

It began with a few people trying to get hamburgers from grill to customer quicker and cheaper. Now it’s changed the way Americans live. And whether you like it or hate it, once you get on the road you’ll eat it.

Authored by: Sam Mckinney

The United States established its claim to the Pacific Northwest in 1792, when a fur trader named Robert Gray became the first man to sail up the Columbia River. Almost two centuries later the author made his own voyage of discovery.

Authored by: Nicholas Lemann

The modern city plays host to conventions and tourists, but it still retains the slightly racy charm that has always made it dear to its natives

Authored by: Tom D. Crouch

What the Wright brothers did in a wild and distant place made its name famous around the world. Their biographer visits the Outer Banks to find what remains of the epochal outpost.

Featured Articles

Often thought to have been a weak president, Carter was strong-willed in doing what he thought was right, regardless of expediency or the political fallout.

Rarely has the full story been told how a famed botanist, a pioneering female journalist, and First Lady Helen Taft battled reluctant bureaucrats to bring Japanese cherry trees to Washington. 

Why have thousands of U.S. banks failed over the years? The answers are in our history and politics.

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

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.

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.