Operation Overlord

John D. Eisenhower | Summer 2017

Ike’s son, historian John Eisenhower, recalls attending meetings with the British wartime leader and reflects on his character and accomplishments.

Gens. Eisenhower & Patton; George Washington Returns; The Iron Spine; The Ship That Wouldn't Die

The Editors | Spring 2019

The April 1969 issue was typical of classic issues of American Heritage, with dramatic and substantive essays on George Washington, Ike and Patton, the Transcontinental Railroad, the "ship that wouldn't die," and many other fascinating subjects from our nation's past

Our April 1969 issue was typical of classic issues of American Heritage, with dramatic and substantive essays on George Washington, Ike and Patton, the Transcontinental Railroad, the "ship that wouldn't die," and m

Ike’s Decision

Michael Korda | Winter 2010

Eisenhower's call to proceed with D-Day was anything but inevitable.

It has been 65 years since D-Day—the early June day when the United States and its allies launched a massive attack on the shores of Normandy in a bid to liberate western Europe from the Nazis.

D-Day: What It Meant

Charles Cawthon | May/June 1994

A soldier who landed in the second wave on Omaha Beach assesses the broadest implications of what he and his comrades achieved there.

The Longest Wait

John Lord | June 1969

The G.I.’s were far more numerous than any army that ever occupied Britain; none left so little visible trace, none so touching a legacy

A Fateful Friendship

Stephen E. Ambrose | April 1969

Eisenhower dreamed of serving under Patton, but history reversed their roles. Their stormy association dramatically shaped the Allied assault on the Third Reich

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Featured Authors

Acheson, Dean

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) was an attorney and statesman who served as Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953 under President Harry Truman. A key architect of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Acheson stressed the importance of multilateral organizations in the fight against totalitarianism. Prior to his service in the Truman Administration, Acheson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, worked at Washington law firm Covington & Burling, and served as Undersecretary of the Treasury for one year under President Franklin Roosevelt.

Ambrose, Stephen E.

Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) was a historian and professor who wrote on military history, presidential history, and American expansion and foreign policy. Ambrose has been praised for his biographies of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, and for helping to galvanize interest in World War II.

Becker, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Becker is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books. Her history When The War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge won accolades from the Robert F. Kennedy book award, while her recent biography of female conflict journalists You Don’t Belong Here: How Three Women Rewrote the Story of War won the 2022 Sperber Book Prize and Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize. She is also the author of America’s Vietnam War: A Narrative History for young adults.

Bird, Kai

Kai Bird is a historian and Executive Director of Leon Levy Center for Biography at the City University of New York. He is best known for writing about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Vietnam War, US-Middle East relations and biographies of political figures. Bird is the author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize, and The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames, a New York Times bestseller. His most recent book is The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter.

Blight, David W.

David W. Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance & Abolition at Yale University. Recently, Blight has written A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Narratives of Emancipation, and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory, which won the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize.