The Fourth Edition features writers and selections that highlight the divergent communities and diverse voices constituting the United States, both past and present. Volume 1 takes students from Native American oral literatures up to 1865, including Whitman and Dickinson. Volume 2 (which can be packaged with a free supplement of Whitman and Dickinson works) opens with African American folk tales and regional writers, and includes new sections on the Beat Movement and the Vietnam Conflict.