本书是为高校英语专业高年级学生编写的综合英语教材,也适合水平相当的学习者使用。本书的编写原则是:
一、精选当代美文坛**散文,题材广泛,立意新颖,注重文化内涵和人文价值。
二、努力体现**教学大纲精神,进一步训练和提高学生的综合英语技能尤其是阅读理解、语法修辞与写作能力。
三、结合当今国际社会公共话题或热门问题,提供丰富的时代信息和鲜活的语言规范,既训练学生的语言技能,又帮助他们开阔视野,激发心智,增长知识。
四、课文注释详尽,特别是文化背景知识的介绍力求准确、客观。
五、练习项目设计精当,注意培养学生批判性阅读、思考、评说和写作能力 及英语释义和英汉互译通能力。
六、综合英语这门课程的主要知识点和核心概念用术语汇编的形式列于书后,以便学生查阅和记忆。

Unit 1
Text A Richard Rodriguez The Lonely,Good Company of Books
Text B Susan Jacoby When Bright Girls Decide That Math Is“a Waste of Time”
Unit 2
Text A E.D.Hirsch Jr. Why America's Universities Are Better Than Its Schools
Text B Benjamin R.Barber America Skpes School
Unit 3
Text A Francis Fukuyama Immigrants and Family Values
Text B Randall E.Majors America's Emerging Gay Culture
Unit 4
Text A Ruth Bendeict Are Families Passe?
Text B Amitai Etzioni Parenting as an Industry
Unit 5
Text A Judith Ortiz Cofer The Myth of the Laitn Woman:I Just Met a Girl Named Maria
Text B N.Scott Momaday The Way to Rainy Mountain
Unit 6
Text A Mararet Atwood Canadians:What Do They Wnat?
Text B Edward T.Hall The Arab World
Unit 7
Text A Arthur M.Schlesinger Jr. The Cult of Ethnicity
Text B Langston Hughes Salvation
Unit 8
Text A Andrew Hacker The Myths of Racial Division
Text B Martin Luther King Jr. I Have a Dream
Unit 9
Text A Henry Louis Mencken The Penalty of Death
Text B Jacques Barzun In Favor of Capital Punishment
Unit 10
Unit 11
Unit 12
Unit 13
Unit 14
Unit 15
Unit 16
Unit 17
Unit 18