1985

John White Alexander began his career as an office boy at Harper’s Weekly and rose to be a leading painter of his generation, especially of its women.

At a time when our civilization is trying to organize itself on scientific principles of mathematical probabilities, statistical modeling, and the like, is traditional narrative history of any real use? Yes, says a distinguished practitioner of the discipline; it can always help us. It might even save us.

In the Yukon with G. C. Hazelet

A former Marine recalls the grim defense of Guadalcanal in 1942.

A brilliant demagogue named Huey Long was scrambling for the presidency when an assassin’s bullets cut him down just 50 years ago.

A leader in the emerging field of technological history speaks about the inventors who made our modern world, and tells why it is vital for us to know not only what they did, but how they thought.

It didn’t just change the way we buy our groceries. It changed the way we live our lives.

The Wyoming photographer Joseph Stimson proudly portrayed his region in the years when it was emerging from it rude frontier beginnings.

He recreated with perfect pitch every tone of voice, every creak and rattle of an America that was disintegrating, even as it gave birth to the country we inhabit today.

On the eve of the Civil War, a Mississippi plantation owner and Philadelphia architect set out to build a massive octagonal mansion in Natchez.