金衡山主编的《美国读本（英语版）》是一部介绍美国文化、思想、政治、观念、历史等方面的综合读本，提供美国研究的基本素材。

本书沿着历史的脉络，涵盖美国社会的各方面，包括政治、文化、宗教、哲学、经济、社会、文学等，通过对历史的形成和走向有过重要影响的文献和文本，力求最精准地探求美国发展为世界霸主的根源。

如何读懂美国？收集在金衡山主编的《美国读本（英语版）》里的文本涵盖美国社会的各个方面，包括政治、文化、宗教、哲学、经济、文学、教育等，沿着历史的脉络，提供的不仅是历史文献，对于美国历史的形成和走向有过重要的影响，更是关于美国的理念和思想，读懂了它们也就读懂了美国是如何一路走到今天的。

《美国读本（英语版）》既可以做教材之用也可以作为了解和研究美国的入门读本。

Ⅰ.From Colony to Constitution: 1620---1800 1

 A.Colonial Mind 1

John Smith: A Description of New England (excerpt) (1616) / 1

Mayflower Compact (1620)/6

John Winthrop: The Little Speech (excerpt) (1639) / 9

Roger Williams: The Bloody Tenet of Persecution,for Cause of Conscience (excerpt) (1644) / 13

Benjamin Franklin: The Way to Wealth (1757) / 17

 B.Making the Revolution 25

Samuel Adams: The Rights of the Colonists (excerpt) (1772) / 25

Patrick Henry: Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death (1775) / 30

Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence (1776) / 34

Thomas Paine: The American Crisis (I) (excerpt) (1777) / 39

 C.American Character and Thoughts on the Constitution 43

Hector St.John de Crevecoeur: Letters from an American Farmer WHAT IS AN AMERICAN (excerpt)(1782) / 43

James Madison: The Federalist Essays No.10 (1787) / 53

George Washington: First Inaugural Address (1789) / 60

Ⅱ.Democratic Development and Cultural Formation:1820--1863 64

 A.Development and Democracy 64

Andrew Jackson: The Majority Is to Govern (excerpt) (1829) / 64

Alexis de Tocqueville: Social Condition of the Anglo-Americans(from Democracy in America) (1835) / 72

Ralph Waldo Emerson: The American Scholar (excerpt) (1837) / 81

Henry David Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (excerpt) (1848) / 90

 B.Voices of the Disadvantaged 97

Elizabeth Cady Stanton:The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848) / 97

Frederick Douglass: Speech at the Anti-Slavery Association (excerpt) (1848) / 103

Seattle: The Indian's Night Promises to Be Dark (1853) / 108

 C.Causes of the Civil War 112

George Fitzhugh: Cannibals All! or, Slaves Without Masters (excerpt) (1857) / 112

Abraham Lincoln: The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) / 117

Ⅲ.Reconstruction and Industrialization: 1865--1900 123

 A.The American Dream: Imagination and Faith 123

Horatio Alger: Ragged Dick (excerpt) (1867) / 123

Walt Whitman: Democraey (excerpt) (1867) / 131

 B.Visions of and Criticisms about Progress 138

Thomas Alva Edison: On the Industrial Research Laboratory (1887) / 138

Frederick Turner: The Significance of the Frontier in American History (excerpt) (1893) / 140

Thorstein Veblen: "Conspicuous Consumption"(excerpt from The Theory of the Leisure Class) (1899) / 145

John Dewey: My Pedagogic Creed (excerpt) (1897) / 153

Ⅳ.The Rise of the American Age: 1900--1950 161

 A.Business and Entrepreneurialism 161

John Wanamaker: On the Department Store (excerpt) (1900) / 161

Frederick Winslow Taylor: On Scientific Management (excerpt) (1912) / 166

Henry Ford: My Life and Work (excerpt) (1922) / 173

 B.The Voice of the Oppressed 179

W.E.B Dubois: The Souls of Black Folks (excerpt) (1903) / 179

"Manifesto" of Industrial Workers of the World (1905) / 185

 C.American Ideas 191

William James: Pragmatism (excerpt) (1907) / 191

Woodrow Wilson: The Meaning of Democracy (1912)/198

H.L.Mencken: Preface to The American Language (1919) / 205

Herbert Hoover: American Individualism (excerpt) (1922) / 209

Henry Fairchild: The Melting-Pot Mistake (excerpt) (1926) / 214

 D.The Conquer of Fear, a Vision of American Mission and the Will to Prevail 220

Franklin D.Roosevelt: First Inaugural Address (1933) / 220

Henry Luce: The American Century (excerpt) (1941) / 225

William Faulkner: Speech on Acceptance of the Nobel Prize (1950) / 230

Ⅴ.Contemporary America: Dominance and Struggle: 1950---2009 233

 A.Social Criticism and The Cold War Fanaticism in the Fifties 233

David Riesman: Preface to The Lonely Crowd (excerpt) (1950)/233

C.Wright Mills: Preface to White Collar:The American Middle Classes (excerpt) (1951) / 238

Joseph McCarthy: Speech at Wheeling, West Virginia (excerpt) (1950) / 247

 B.The Atomized America: The Turbulent Sixties 252

Tom Hayden: Students for a Democratic Society:The Port Huron Statement (excerpt) (1962) / 252

Martin Luther King: Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (excerpt) (1963) / 260

Lyndon Baines Johnson: The Great Society Speech (excerpt) (1965) / 266

Betty Friedan: Our Revolution Is Unique (excerpt) (1968) / 271

 C.Reclaiming America in the Age of the Three Worlds 279

Henry A.Kissinger: Strengthening the World Economic Structure (1975) / 279

Ronald Reagan: Farewell Address (1988) / 283

 D.Toward the Challenges in the New Century 290

Michael Walzer: What Does It Mean to Be an "American"? (excerpt) (1990) / 290

Bill Clinton: Address Before a Joint Session of Congress (excerpt) (1993) / 298

Toni Morrison: Nobel Lecture (1993) / 306

George W.Bush: Speech Addressed to the Congress about the War against Terrorism (2001) / 314

Samuel P.Huntington: Anglo-Protestant Culture(excerpt from Who Are We?) (2003) / 221

Barack Obama: Inaugural Address (2009) / 330