《美国文学简史》试图简洁而全面地展现美国民族的想象力——以文字形式体现出来的想象力。《美国文学简史》共分五章，第一章实际上是前史，即美国文学正式诞生前的文学史，是对新大陆这一“伊甸园”的想象。第二章的主题为“美国文学的创造” ，与“创造美国”这一主题密切相关，论述美国从1800年建国后到1865年南北战争结束之间的美国文学。第三章的主题为“重现过去，重塑未来”，与“重建美国”这一主题密切相关，论述南北战争后到1900 年之间的美国文学。第四章的主题为现代美国和现代主义，论述1900年至1945年二战结束之间的美国文学。第五章的主题是“美国的世纪”，论述1945年二战结束后美国逐渐称霸时期的美国文学。

总序
《美国文学简史》导读
1 The First Americans: American Literature During the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods
  Imagining Eden
  Writing of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods
2 Inventing Americas: The Making of American Literature 1800–1865 50
  Making a Nation 50
  The Making of American Myths
  The Making of American Selves
  The Making of Many Americas
  The Making of an American Fiction and Poetry
3 Reconstructing the Past, Reimagining the Future: The Development of American Literature 1865–1900
  Rebuilding a Nation
  The Development of Literary Regionalisms
  The Development of Literary Realism and Naturalism
  The Development of Women’s Writing
  The Development of Many Americas
4 Making It New: The Emergence of Modern American Literature 1900–1945
  Changing National Identities
  Between Victorianism and Modernism
  The Inventions of Modernism
  Traditionalism, Politics, and Prophecy
  Community and Identity
  Mass Culture and the Writer
5 Negotiating the American Century: American Literature Since 1945
  Towards a Transnational Nation
  Formalists and Confessionals
  Public and Private Histories
  Beats, Prophets, and Aesthetes
  The Art and Politics of Race
  Realism and Its Discontents
  Language and Genre
  Creating New Americas
  Index
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“十一五”国家规划教材