Table Of Contents:
Foreword viii

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
Introduction xi

Lewis H. Lapham
1850's

The Town-Ho's Story 2(10)

Herman Melville

Editor's Table: Union Saving 12(5)

Uttoxeter 17(3)

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Siege of Fort Atkinson 20(9)

The Dividing Line Between Federal and Local Authority 29(13)

Stephen A. Douglas
1860's

The Battle of Antietam 42(5)

George F.Noyes

Psyche 47(6)

Hans Christian Andersen

The Fortunes of War 53(4)

Robert Tomes

The March to the Sea 57(2)

Herman Melville

The Freedman's Story 59(9)

M. Schele de Vere

The Plains, As I Crossed Them Ten Years Ago 68(4)

Horace Greeley
1870's

Editor's Easy Chair: Charles Dickens 72(2)

George William Curtis

Down the Mississippi 74(7)

George Ward Nichols

Editor's Easy Chair: Political Life in America 81(3)

George William Curtis

The Little Laborers of New York City 84(3)

C.L. Brace

Panic in Wall Street 87(6)

Song of the Redwood-Tree 93(4)

Walt Whitman

A Song 97(1)

Christina Rossetti

Editor's Easy Chair: Boss Tweed 98(4)

George William Curtis
1880's

Washington Square 102(4)

Henry James

Editor's Easy Chair: Women's Rights 106(2)

George William Curtis

Our Public Land Policy 108(5)

Veeder B. Paine

Editor's Easy Chair: Ulysses S. Grant 113(2)

George William Curtis

Editor's Easy Chair: Strikes and Anarchy 115(3)

George William Curtis
1890's

His Ship 118(2)

James Russell Lowell

Fame's Little Day 120(5)

Sarah Orne Jewett

St. Clair's Defeat 125(8)

Theodore Roosevelt

With the Fifth Corps 133(7)

Frederic Remington

The Angel Child 140(6)

Stephen Crane
1900's

Extracts from Adam's Diary and Eve's Diary 146(12)

Mark Twain

The Quicksand 158(8)

Edith Wharton

The Integrity of American Character 166(2)

Grover Cleveland

The Sun-dog Trail 168(7)

Jack London

Feeding the Mind 175(3)

Lewis Carroll

The Informer 178(11)

Joseph Conrad

The Enchanted Bluff 189(7)

Willa Sibert Cather
1910's

Night in a Suburb 196(1)

Thomas Hardy

The Rabbit-pen 197(4)

Sherwood Anderson

The Country Newspaper 201(4)

William Allen White

My Plunge into the Slums 205(5)

M.E.Ravage

The Country Doctor 210(7)

Theodore Dreiser

The Lion's Mouth: Mother Goose, Propagandist 217(2)

Don Marquis

Eighty Years and After 219(7)

William Dean Howells
1920's

The Gods of the Copybook Maxims 226(2)

Rudyard Kipling

Fire and Ice 228(1)

Robert Frost

To the Ghost of John Milton 229(1)

Carl Sandburg

Crime and the Alarmists 230(5)

Clarence S. Darrow

In Praise of Freedom 235(6)

Will Durant

Editor's Easy Chair: Re-discovering Europe 241(2)

Edward S. Martin

Aimee Semple McPherson 243(8)

Sarah Comstock

My Countryside, Then and Now 251(5)

Malcolm Cowley

Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments 256(1)

Archibald MacLeish

The Lady in the Looking-Glass 257(5)

Virginia Woolf
1930's

The Peculiar Weakness of Mr. Hoover 262(5)

Walter Lippmann

Sonnet 267(1)

Edna St. Vincent Millay

``Listen to This, Dear'' 268(2)

James Thurber

A Death in the Country 270(10)

Stephen Vincent Benet

What Hitler Wants 280(5)

Leon Trotsky

Was My Life Worth Living? 285(5)

Emma Goldman

The Future of English 290(5)

H. L. Mencken

The Chrysanthemums 295(6)

John Steinbeck

Solitude 301(1)

Rainer Maria Rilke

America's Medieval Women 302(6)

Pearl S. Buck

One Man's Meat: Walden Pond 308(4)

E. B. White

Since Yesterday 312(4)

Frederick Lewis Allen
1940's

Who Goes Nazi? 316(5)

Dorothy Thompson

The Wide Net 321(11)

Eudora Welty

What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You 332(4)

Richard Wright

The People at War 336(7)

John Dos Passos

Going Home 343(3)

Alfred Kazin

Iwo Jima Before H-Hour 346(6)

John P.Marquand

Our Worst Wartime Mistake 352(7)

Eugene V. Rostow

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb 359(6)

Henry L. Stimson

Gertrude Stein: A Self-Portrait 365(7)

Katherine Anne Porter

Anywhere in Europe 372(3)

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Art for Art's Sake 375(4)

E. M. Forster

Vega 379(9)

John Cheever
1950's

The Century 388(5)

Bernard DeVoto

Evangelist 393(3)

Joyce Cary

The Silent Generation 396(3)

Thornton Wilder

Lamb to the Slaughter 399(5)

Roald Dahl

The Great Wall Street Crash 404(4)

John Kenneth Galbraith

The Sound of Moorish Laughter 408(6)

Harold Brodkey

On Fear: The South in Labor 414(3)

William Faulkner

The Farmer's Wife 417(1)

Anne Sexton

Recollections from Beyond the Last Rope 418(8)

Philip Roth
1960's

Mushrooms 426(1)

Sylvia Plath

Vermont 427(1)

John Updike

The Dangerous Road Before Martin Luther King 428(10)

James Baldwin

Miami Notebook: Cassius Clay and Malcolm X 438(7)

George Plimpton

The Paranoid Style in American Politics 445(7)

Richard Hofstadter

Mississippi: The Fallen Paradise 452(6)

Walker Percy

Long View: Negro 458(1)

Langston Hughes

The Celebration 459(2)

James Dickey

History by the Ounce 461(4)

Barbara W. Tuchman

Silences: When Writers Don't Write 465(7)

Tillie Olsen

The Player Piano 472(1)

Randall Jarrell

Miami Beach and Chicago 473(5)

Norman Mailer

Editor's Easy Chair: Survival U 478(6)

John Fischer
1970's

My Lai 4 484(25)

Seymour M. Hersh

Is There a Place for Morality in Foreign Affairs? 509(6)

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

Everyday Use 515(5)

Alice Walker

The Death of Salvador Allende 520(6)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Sound of Tinkling Brass 526(4)

Murray Kempton

Innocence in the Galapagos 530(7)

Annie Dillard

To the Disney Station 537(9)

Michael Harrington
1980's

Liberty Under Siege 546(12)

Walter Karp

The Soccer War 558(10)

Ryszard Kapuscinski

The Moment Before the Gun Went Off 568(3)

Nadine Gordimer

Untime of the Imam 571(6)

Salman Rushdie

When You're a Crip (Or a Blood) 577(9)

Users, Like Me 586(4)

Gail Regier

Reassurance 590(5)

Allan Gurganus

Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast 595(11)

Tom Wolfe
1990's

Chronicle of a Debacle Foretold 606(14)

L. J. Davis

Late Victorians 620(8)

Richard Rodriguez

Ladies and Gentlemen: 628(4)

Joyce Carol Oates

The Rake 632(3)

David Mamet

The 400-Pound CEO 635(8)

George Saunders

The Last Shot 643(14)

Darcy Frey

On Not Being a Victim 657(6)

Mary Gaitskill

Notebook: Morte De Nixon 663(5)

Lewis H. Lapham

Ticket to the Fair 668(15)

David Foster Wallace

Where Worlds Collide 683(7)

Pico lyer

Beyond Belief 690(9)

Fenton Johnson

Notebook: Exorcism 699(4)

Lewis H. Lapham
Index 703(5)
Illustration Credits 708(2)
Copyright Acknowledgments 710