Exploring America: Perspectives on Critical Issues

This thematic and chronologically arranged reader offers major formative documents from 1620 to the present, which represents classic as well as non-mainstream voices. It explores five enduring issues that underlie current national debate and have influenced the development of American values: the question of mission, the problem of identity, the promise of equality, the relationship of the individual and the state, and the place of religion in a secular state. Exploring America is an intertextual forum for political, literary, and historical dialogue where readers hear authors speak to one another, and, through critical analysis and writing, participate in the debate. Selections include autobiography, biography, belles lettres, speeches, fiction, political documents, and literary criticism. Features: * Intertextuality, as a strategic emphasis throughout the book, immerse students in the causality underneath the progession of American thought from 1620 to the present. * Selections include autobiography, biography, BELLES LETTRES, speeches, fiction, political documents, and literacy criticism. * Chapters are arranged around key issues and an alternate table of contents groups reading by themes. * Emphasis on developing context is well supported by the readings, which provide a rich historical backdrop for writing assignments. * Key research words serve as prompts for research and composition, and an intertextual index component is presented in the form of an index. * Readings from a diversity of sources represent the myriad voices of America. * OTHER VOICES sections provide counterpoint readings to main selections and assist in the refinement of critical thinking skills.