Book excerpt: For almost 50 years, American Heritage magazine has been telling America's story in fresh and vivid articles that have come to represent the best of responsible popular history. In this compre-hensive and informative book, the editors of American Heritage have combed through every issue to find the most entertaining and illuminating pieces. The result -- by turns stirring, moving, funny, evocative, horrifying -- is an unusually revealing informal history of American civilisation from the first settlements to the close of the twentieth century. "A Sense of History" proves that the best history is always the best reading. And the authors are numbered among the foremost historians, novelists, and public figures of recent years.