About the Book
Table of Contents:
* Denotes selections new to this edition. Edward Abbey, The Right to Arms. Mortimer Adler, How to Mark a Book. * RoseMarie Gionta Alfieri, Should the State Know Your HIV Status? Paula Gunn Allen, Where I Come from Is Like This. Julia Alvarez, El Doctor, Short Story. Maya Angelou, Caged Bird, Poem. Maya Angelou, Champion of the World. Maya Angelou, Finishing School. Maya Angelou, Graduation. Susan B. Anthony, Womens Right to Vote. Gloria Anzaldua, How to Tame a Wild Tongue. * Mathew Arnold, Dover Beach, Poem. Isaac Asimov, What Is Intelligence, Anyway? Margaret Atwood, The Female Body. Margaret Atwood, Pornography. Francis Bacon, Of Studies. Russell Baker, Growing Up. Russell Baker, Little Red Riding Hood Revisited. Russell Baker, School versus Education. James Baldwin, Autobiographical Notes. James Baldwin, The Discovery of What It Means to Be an American. James Baldwin, If Black English Isnt a Language, Then Tell Me What Is? James Baldwin, Sonnys Blues, Short Story. Toni Cade Bambara, The Lesson, Short Story. * Russell Banks, My Mothers Memoirs, My Fathers Lie, and Other True Stories, Short Story. John Perry Barlow, Is There a There in Cyberspace? Dave Barry, A Hairy Experience. Dave Barry, Just Say No to Rugs. * Martha Bayles, Body and Soul: The Musical Miseducation of the Youth. William Bennett, Should Drugs Be Legalized? Bruno Bettelheim, Fairy Tales and Modern Stories. Bruno Bettelheim, The Holocaust. Ambrose Bierce, Some Devils Definitions. Caroline Bird, The Case against College. * Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish, Poem. Alan Bloom, Music. * Deborah Blum, The Gender Blur. Robert Bly, Naivete. Sissela Bok, Lies for the Public Good. Haig A.Bosmajian, The Dehumanization of the Indian. Judy Brady, Why I Want a Wife. Michael Bronski, Magic and AIDS: Presumed Innocent. * Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool, Poem. Susan Brownmiller, Femininity. Amy Bruckman, Finding Ones Own Space in Cyberspace. William F. Buckley, Jr, Why Dont We Complain? * Stephen Budiansky, Lost in Translation. * William H. Calvin, The Great Climate Flip-Flop. Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus. Peggy Carlson, Why We Dont Need Animal Experimentation. Rachel Carson, A Fable for Tomorrow. Rachel Carson, The Obligation to Endure. Raymond Carver, My Fathers Life. * Raymond Carver, Cathedral, Short Story. Lorene Cary, Welcome to St. Pauls. Bruce Catton, Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts. Linda Chavez, Demystifying Multiculturalism. * Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour, Short Story. * Arthur C. Clarke, The Star, Short Story. * J.M. Coetzee, Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life. Judith Ortiz Cofer, Casa: Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood. Judith Ortiz Cofer, Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria. Kristen Cole, Generation X. Robert Coles, Children of Affluence. Aaron Copland, How We Listen to Music. Bill Cosby, The Baffling Question. * Dinesh DSouza, How Reagan Won the Cold War. Dinesh DSouza, The Visigoths in Tweed. * Edwidge Danticat, Women Like Us, Short Story. Clarence Darrow, Address to the Prisoners in the Cook County Jail. Charles Darwin, Understanding Natural Selection. Vine Deloria, Jr., We Talk, You Listen. * Jared Diamond, The Ethnobiologists Dilemma. * Emily Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop for Death -, Poem. Joan Didion, In Bed. Joan Didion, Marrying Absurd. Joan Didion, On Going Home. Joan Didion, On Keeping a Notebook. Joan Didion, On Self-Respect. Joan Didion, Salvador. Joan Didion, Why I Write. Annie Dillard, An American Childhood. Annie Dillard, The Chase. Annie Dillard, The Death of a Moth. Annie Dillard, In the Jungle. Annie Dillard, Seeing. Annie Dillard, So This Was Adolescence. * Brian Doherty, Those Who Cant, Test. Michael Dorris, Adam Goes to School. Frederick Douglass, Learning to Read and Write. * Andre Dubus, Dancing after Hours, Short Story. Esther Dyson, Cyberspace: If You Dont Love It, Leave It. * Gerald Early, Performance and Reality: Race, Sports, and the Modern World. Barbara Ehrenreich, Kiss Me, Im Gay. Barbara Ehrenreich, The Myth of Man as Hunter. Barbara Ehrenreich, Spudding Out. Barbara Ehrenreich, What Ive Learned from Men. Gretel Ehrlich, About Men. Gretel Ehrlich, The Western Code. Lars Eighner, On Dumpster Diving. Loren Eiseley, The Brown Wasps. * Ralph Ellison, Battle Royal, Short Story. Ralph Ellison, Living with Music. Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Welcome to Cyberspace. Louise Erdrich, Adam. * Louise Erdrich, Indian Boarding School: The Runaways, Poem. Susan Estrich, Separate Is Better. Amitai Etzioni, HIV Sufferers Have a Responsibility. * Kathleen Fackelmann, Its a Girl. Susan Faludi, Blame It on Feminism. Peter Farb, Linguistic Chauvinism. * William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily, Short Story. E. M. Forster, My Wood. Betty Freidan, The Quiet Movement of American Men. * Robert Frost, Birches, Poem. Paul Fussell, Notes on Class. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., The Debate Has Been Miscast from the Start. * Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, Short Story. * Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers, Short Story. * Susan Glaspell, Trifles, Play. Nathan Glazer, In Defense of Multiculturalism. William Golding, Thinking as a Hobby. Ellen Goodman, The Company Man. Ellen Goodman, The 'Reasonable Woman' Is an Effective Standard to Establish Sexual Harassment. Ellen Goodman, The Tapestry of Friendship. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Fathers, Daughters, and the Magic of Baseball. * Nadine Gordimer, Some Monday for Sure, Short Story. Stephen Jay Gould, The Creation Myths of Cooperstown. Stephen Jay Gould, Evolution as Fact and Theory. Stephen Jay Gould, Genesis versus Geology. * Stephen Jay Gould, Ghosts of Bell Curves Past. Stephen Jay Gould, The Median Isnt the Message. Stephen Jay Gould, Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of the Dinosaurs. Stephen Jay Gould, Womens Brains. Jeff Greenfield, The Beatles: They Changed Rock, Which Changed the Culture, Which Changed Us. Jeff Greenfield, The Black and White Truth about Basketball. Dick Gregory, Shame. Donald Hall, Keeping Things. Garrett Hardin, Lifeboat Ethics: The Case against Helping the Poor. * Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappaccinis Daughter, Short Story. * Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays, Poem. * Seamus Heaney, Mid-Term Break, Poem. Shirley Brice Heath, Literate Traditions. Robert Heilbroner, Dont Let Stereotypes Warp Your Judgments. * Ernest Hemingway, Big Two-Hearted River, Short Story. Nat Hentoff, 'Speech Codes' on the Campus and Problems of Free Speech. Edward Hoagland, The Courage of Turtles. John Holt, Three Kinds of Discipline. bell hooks, Straightening Our Hair. bell hooks, Talking Back. * Janet L. Hopson, Fetal Psychology. * A. E. Housman, When I Was One-and-Twenty, Poem. * Pam Houston, Cowboys Are My Weakness, Short Story. Sue Hubbell, The Beekeeper. * Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers, Poem. Langston Hughes, Salvation. Langston Hughes, That Word Black. Jon D.Hull, Slow Descent into Hell. Zora Neale Hurston, How It Feels to Be Colored Me. Molly Ivins, The Romance of Football. Pico Iyer, Tour of the City: Encounters between East and West. Susan Jacoby, A First Amendment Junkie. * Shirley Jackson, The Lottery, Short Story. * Henry James, The Beast in the Jungle, Short Story. Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence. Gish Jen, What Means Switch? Rachel L. Jones, Whats Wrong with Black English? Barbara Jordan, The Americanization Ideal. June Jordan, Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan. Suzanne Britt Jordan, Fun, Oh Boy. Fun. You Could Die from It. Suzanne Britt Jordan, Neat People versus Sloppy People. Suzanne Britt Jordan, That Lean and Hungry Look. * James Joyce, Araby, Short Story. * Sebastian Junger, The Zero-Moment Point. M. Kadi, Welcome to Cyberia. Roger Karraker, Highways of the Mind or Toll Roads between Information Castles. Leon Kass, Why Doctors Must Not Kill. * Nicholas deB. Katzenbach and Burke Marshall, Not Color Blind: Just Blind. Garrison Keillor, How to Write a Personal Letter. Helen Keller, Everything Has a Name. Helen Keller, Three Days to See. Jack Kevorkian, A Case of Assisted Suicide. * Jamaica Kincaid, Girl, Short Story. * Jamaica Kincaid, Red Ants. Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail. Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies. Maxine Hong Kingston, No Name Woman. Maxine Hong Kingston, Silence. Perri Klass, Learning the Language. * David Klinghoffer, Retro Rampant. Jonathan Kozol, Are the Homeless Crazy? Jonathan Kozol, The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society. Charles Krauthammer, AIDS: Getting More than Its Share? Leonard Kriegel, A Loaded Question: What Is It about Americans and Guns? Robin Tolmach Lakoff, The Grooves of Academe. Robin Tolmach Lakoff, Talking Like a Lady. * Larry M. Lance, Gender Differences in Heterosexual Dating: A Content Analysis of Personal Ads. * Shirley Lauro, Open Admissions, Play. Barbara Lawrence, Four-Letter Words Can Hurt You. * Nicholas Lemann, Ready, Read! Doris Lessing, My Father. Abraham Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address. Barry Lopez, Landscape and Narrative. Min-Zhuan Lu, from Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle. David Ludlum, The Climythology of America. Alison Lurie, American Regional Costume. * Peter Maas, The Secrets of Mississippi. Niccolo Machievelli, Of the Things for Which Men, and Especially Princes, are Praised or Blamed. * Norman MacLean, from A River Runs through It. Malcolm X, A Homemade Education. * Gabriel Garc?a Marqu?z, Balthazars Marvelous Afternoon, Short Story. Frank McConnell, Seinfeld. Margaret Mead, A Day in Samoa. Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux, On Friendship. Mary Mebane, The Scheme of Color. * Jack Miles, Belief to Follow, Religion Makes a Comeback. Stanley Milgram, The Perils of Obedience. Casey Miller and Kate Smith, Whos in Charge of the English Language? Mark Crispin Miller, Deride and Conquer. Neil Miller, Gay Teachers, Gay Students. Czeslaw Milosz, American Ignorance of War. Jessica Mitford, Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain. N. Scott Momaday, The Way to Rainy Mountain. Desmond Morris, Territorial Behavior. Donald M. Murray, The Makers Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts. * Richard Nadler, Low Class: How Progressive Education Hurts the Poor and Minorities. Gloria Naylor, 'Mommy, What Does `Nigger Mean?' Nicholas Negroponte, Dont Dissect a Frog, Build One. Alleen Pace Nilsen, Sexism in English: A 1990s Update. * Sherwin B. Nuland, Doctors and Deities. * Susan Nunes, A Moving Day, Short Story. Joyce Carol Oates, On Boxing. Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Short Story. * Flannery OConnor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, Short Story. Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing, Short Story. George Orwell, A Hanging. George Orwell, Politics and the English Language. George Orwell, The Principles of Newspeak. George Orwell, Shooting an Elephant. George Orwell, Why I Write. * Cynthia Ozick, She: Portrait of the Essay as a Warm Body. Camille Paglia, Rape: A Bigger Danger Than Feminists Know. Thomas Paine, from Rights of Man. * Orlando Patterson, from The Ordeal of Integration: Progress and Resentment in Americas Racial Crisis. Noel Perrin, The Androgynous Man. Alexander Petrunkevitch, The Spider and the Wasp. * Sylvia Plath, Daddy, Poem. Plato, The Allegory of the Cave. Plato, The Crito. * Edgar Allan Poe, Ligeia, Short Story. Katha Pollitt, The Smurfette Principle. Katha Pollitt, Why I Hate 'Family Values' (Let Me Count the Ways). * Ramesh Ponnuru, The Myths. * Katherine Anne Porter, Maria Concepci?n, Short Story. Neil Postman, Future Shlock. Mario Puzo, Choosing a Dream: Italians in Hells Kitchen. Anna Quindlen, Abortion Is Too Complex to Feel All One Way About. Anna Quindlen, Gay. Anna Quindlen, Our Animal Rites. * Janet Raloff, Democratizing Science. William Raspberry, The Handicap of Definition. Ishmael Reed, America: The Multinational Society. * Robert B. Reich, Broken Faith: Why We Need to Renew the Social Compact. Adrienne Rich, Anger and Tenderness. Paul Roberts, How to Say Nothing in 500 Words. * Gregory Rodriguez, English Lesson in California. Richard Rodriguez, Complexion. Richard Rodriguez, The Fear of Losing a Culture. Richard Rodriguez, Public and Private Language. Richard Rodriguez, Workers. Theodore Roethke, My Papas Waltz, Poem. Betty Rollin, Motherhood: Who Needs It? Mike Rose, I Just Wanna Be Average. Elisabeth Kubler Ross, On the Fear of Death. Judith Wilson Ross, Ethics and the Language of AIDS. Carl T. Rowan, Unforgettable Miss Bessie. Scott Russell Sanders, Death of a Homeless Man. Scott Russell Sanders, The Inheritance of Tools. Scott Russell Sanders, The Men We Carry in Our Minds. May Sarton, The Rewards of Living a Solitary Life. * Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Truth and Rumor on the Organ Trail. Chief Seattle, Speech on the Signing of the Treaty of Port Elliott. Richard Selzer, Abortion. Richard Selzer, The Discus Thrower. Richard Selzer, The Knife. * William Shakespeare, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day? Poem. * Nina Shea, A Worldwide Phenomenon. Gail Sheehy, Predictable Crises of Adulthood. Randy Shilts, Conduct Unbecoming: The 'Copy' Berg Story. Leslie Marmon Silko, Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective. Leslie Marmon Silko, Lullaby. Theodore Sizer, Horaces Compromise. Adam Smith, Fifty Million Handguns. Susan Sontag, Beauty. Susan Sontag, On AIDS. Gary Soto, The Jacket. Gary Soto, Looking for Work. * Gary Soto, The Small Faces. William Stafford, Writing. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Solitude of Self. Brent Staples, Black Men and Public Space. * Katina R. Stapleton, from The Margins to Mainstream: The Political Power of Hip-Hop. Shelby Steele, Im Black, Youre White, Whos Innocent? Shelby Steele, On Being Black and Middle Class. * Wallace Stegner, The Blue-Winged Teal, Short Story. Gloria Steinem, Erotica and Pornography. Gloria Steinem, The Importance of Work. Gloria Steinem, Sex, Lies, and Advertising. * T. J. Stiles, Buffalo Soldiers. Johnathan Swift, A Modest Proposal. * Ronald Takaki, from A Different Mirror. Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club. Amy Tan, Mother Tongue. Amy Tan, Two Kinds. Deborah Tannen, Men and Women Talking on the Job. Deborah Tannen, Sex, Lies, and Conversation. Deborah Tannen, Talking up Close. Deborah Tannen, The Triumph of the Yell. John Taylor, Are You Politically Incorrect? * Edward Tenner, Ever Since Frankenstein. Studs Terkel, Miss U.S.A. Paul Theroux, Being a Man. Lewis Thomas, Notes on Punctuation. Lewis Thomas, On Natural Death. Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience. James Thurber, University Days. * Jean Toomer, Reapers, Poem. Anne Tyler, Still Just Writing. Mark Twain, Reading the River. * Luis Valdez, Play, Los Vendidos. Michael Ventura, Report from El Dorado. Judith Viorst, Friends, Good Friends - and Such Good Friends. * Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron, Short Story. Alice Walker, Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self. Alice Walker, The Civil Rights Movement: What Good Was It? Alice Walker, Everyday Use. Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers Gardens. Alice Walker, The Place Where I Was Born. Harry Waters, Life According to TV. Eudora Welty, Listening. * Eudora Welty, A Worn Path, Short Story. Cornel West, Race Matters. E. B. White, Once More to the Lake. Walt Whitman, Death of Abraham Lincoln. * Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd, Poem. George F. Will, As Jails Overflow, Other Forms of Punishment Beckon. George F. Will, The Hard Blue Glow. Patricia Williams, The Death of the Profane. Patricia Williams, Hate Radio. * Ian Wilmut, Cloning for Medicine. * Edward O. Wilson, The Biological Basis of Morality. * Michael Winerip, Looking for an 11 OClock Fix. Marie Winn, Television: The Plug-In Drug. Langdon Winner, Mythinformation. Naomi Wolf, The Rites of Sisterhood. Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff. * Tobias Wolff, The Night in Question, Short Story. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Elizabeth Wong, The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl. Virginia Woolf, The Death of the Moth. Virginia Woolf, Professions for Women. Richard Wright, The Library Card. * William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming, Poem. William Zinsser, The Act of Writing: One Mans Method William Zinsser, College Pressures. William Zinsser, Shanghai.
