American Heritage

TOC

 
34 WHAT MADE THE GOVERNMENT GROW
by Bernard A. Weisberger
. . . and grow, and grow, from almost no employees to some three million. Don't blame the welfare state, or the military; what actually happened is much more interesting.

65 SUPER MARIO NATION
by Steven. L. Kent
The video game turns 25 years old this year, and it has packed a whole lot of history into a career that began in the restless imagination of a bright kid who was hanging out with the M.I.T. model-railroad club.

78 AMONG THE COWBOYS
by Alex Shoumatoff
They carry on an elemental American tradition that is surprisingly recent and has been dying for half the time it's been alive-but will be with us for a long time yet.

92 THE HERETIC
by David Lehman
At the height of the American avant-garde movement, Fairfield Porter's realistic paintings defied the orthodoxy of Abstract Expressionism-and risked rejection by the art world. But today his true stature is becoming apparent: He may just be the best we have.
7 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

8 CORRESPONDENCE

14 IN THE NEWS
by Bernard A. Weisberger

18 THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA
by John Steele Gordon

22 HISTORY HAPPENED HERE

28 MY BRUSH WITH HISTORY

105 THE TIME MACHINE
by Frederic D. Schwarz

112 READERS' ALBUM




American Heritage