本书全部文章采用英文原文，力图保持原汁原味；切入英语文化的各个层面、各个情景，以期在更大的语境中提高学生的语言理解和运用能力；深入英语文化，将焦点放在中外文化的差异上，并配有互动式练习。

本教材不仅适用于高校英语专业学生，也适用于入学时英语水平较高的非英语专业英语，以及有一定英语基础而准备出国深造的英语学习者。

本书为中美专家合作编写，是一套缜密切入英美文化各个层面，培养英语运用能力的有机教程。此教材的教学基本理念是：把学术焦点放在中西文化的表里差异中，以培养准确、纯正的英语，从而生动无碍地掌握语言技能。与国内现有同类教材相比，本教材有以下特点：全部文章采用英文原文，力图保持原汁原味；切入英语文化的各个层面、各个情景，以期在更大的语境中提高学生的语言理解和运用能力；深入英语文化，将焦点放在中外文化的差异上，并配有互动式练习。

本教材不仅适用于高校英语专业学生，也适用于入学时英语水平较高的非英语专业英语，以及有一定英语基础而准备出国深造的英语学习者。

Unit 1  Being Ethnic in the U.S.

Close Reading  None of This Is Fair

Further Reading I. Growing Up Asian in America

II. Cultural Baggage

Listening How It Feels to Be Colored Me

Writing  Why Blacks Need Affirmative Action

Unit 2  Language and Society

Close Reading If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?

Further Reading I. Softening the Stories for Children

II. To the Victor Belongs the Language

Listening English Is a Crazy Language

Writing  Fairy. Tales and Modern Stories

Unit 3  Gun Control in Debate

Close Reading Just Take Away Their Guns

Further Reading I. Why Handguns Must Be Outlawed

II. The Case for Firearms

Listening More Guns, Less Crime?

Writing  Guns in the Courtroom

Unit 4  Television and Violence

Close Reading TV Violence. Does It Cause Real-life Mayhem?

Further Reading I. When Television Is a School for Criminals

II. The Effects of Television on Family Life

Listening Dating

Writing  Crack and the Box

Unit 5  Gender and Sexuality

Close Reading Between the Sexes, a Great Divide

Further Reading I. Why Are Women This Miserable?

II. I'd Rather Be Black than Female

Listening  Thank Heaven for Little Boys

Writing  Sex in the Movies

Unit 6  imaging Beauty

Close Reading Clothing as a Sign System (Part I)

Further Reading I. Clothing as a Sign System (Part II)

II. The Ugly Truth About Beauty

Listening  Body Imperfect

Writing  Venus Envy

Unit 7  Cyber-space. The New Frontier

Close Reading  The Tales They Tell in Cyber-space

Further Reading I. Men, Women, and Computers

II. Don't Look Back

Listening California Report Cautious on "E-voting"

Writing  Rising Internet Use Quietly Transforms the Way Japanese Live

Unit 8  Sex Education

Close Reading Condoms: The New Diploma

Further Reading I. The War on Embarrassment

II. A Pyrrhic Victory

Listening The Secret Struggle Toward Womanhood

Writing  Third Base: Identity

Unit 9  The Entertainment Business

Close Reading Hollywood Poison Factory

Further Reading I. Tough Talk on Entertainment

II. Today's Pop Stars Hurt by Too Much Publicity?

Listening Rock and Roll Music and Political and Social Changes

Writing  Mickey Mouse

Unit 10  The Divorce Debate

Close Reading The Perfect Family

Further Reading I. Splitting Up

  II. Why Marriages Fail

Listening  The Good Marriage

Writing The Divorce Debate in the New York Times

Unit 11  Leisure and Pastime

Close Reading Dostoyevsky and a Decaf

Further Reading I. A Diarist on Diarists

II. Living with My VCR

Listening  What to Listen for in Music

Writing  Night Life on the Reef: Looking at Nighttime Fish Habits

Unit 12  How Free Should Media Be

Close Reading Let's Put Pornography Back in the Closet

Further Reading I. Hate Radio

II. TV, Freedom, and the Loss of Community

Listening  The End of Admiration: The Media and the Loss of Heroes

Writing  Soaps, Cynicism, and Mind Control

Unit 13  Racial Discrimination and Its Manifestations

Close Reading The Recoloring of Campus Life

Further Reading I. Blacks Cannot Escape Segregation

II. Watching the Miss America Pageant

Listening  The Lesson

Writing Colorblind

Unit 14  Man in Nature

Close Reading Learning to See

Further Reading I. Listening to the Air

II. The Last of the Wild Salmon

Listening  The Survival of the City in Our Time

Writing  The Death of a Moth

Unit 15  Family Values

Close Reading Myths of Family Past

Further Reading I. The Coming White Underclass

II. Family Album

Listening  The Family Legacy

Writing Sex in a Marriage

Unit 16  Trashing the Planet

Close Reading The Greenhouse Blues

Further Reading I. Trashing the Planet?

II. DDT, Science, and Public Policy

Listening  Out, Damn Naturalists

Writing A Review of Trashing the Planet ( I )