美国概况(文字版)
?American Government
?Sa Xiaoli
?Issues Dwelt on…
?The Development of American Political Parties
?Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances
◆The Congress
◆The President
◆The Court
?Government of the United States
?I. What Is a Political Party?
? A political party is a group of citizens who agree on major issues facing the nation. These
groups work to create public policies that reflect their views.
?Parties choose, or nominate,people they want to elect to public office. These
candidates campaign to get elected.
?Parties in the US
?Any American citizen may join a political party regardless of age, but most members are
eighteen or older.
?The United States has a two-party system. The Republicans emerged as a major party in
1860 with the election of Abraham Lincoln. The Democratic Party formed under Andrew Jackson twenty years earlier.
?Hamilton vs. Jefferson
?Political parties first emerged when followers of Alexander Hamilton and Thomas
Jefferson disagreed over major issues on the Constitution and government.
?Jefferson’s group took the name Democratic-Republicans. Due to experience with Britain,
they feared a powerful central government. They wanted the states to hold greater power.
?Hamilton championed a strong national government with a powerful chief executive. His
followers called themselves Federalists.
?Jacksonian Democracy Reigns
?In 1828, the farmers and small business owners who made up J efferson’s party, calling
themselves the Democratic Party, nominated Andrew Jackson. He stood for the common citizen, but looked out for southern and western interests.
?Those who did not support Jackson formed their own party called Whigs.
?The Whigs and Democrats made up the two key parties in American politics for two
decades.
?The Two Major Parties Emerge
?In 1854 Whigs, former Free Soil Party members, and ex-Democrats formed the
Republican Party to oppose the spread of slavery in US territories.
?The Whigs faded from American politics leaving the Democrats and Republicans in a
two-party system that has dominated American politics ever since.
?American Politics Today
?Democrats usually feel that the federal government has a responsibility to help the poor
through government intervention.
?Democrats are generally seen as liberal.
?Republicans hold the view that leaving the economy alone will allow for growth, giving
people greater ability to help themselves. They believe in less regulation.
?Republicans are viewed as being conservative.
?The Two Major Parties Gradually Lost Their Differences
?1) Each political party is actually a loose association of the Party organizations.
?2) Each party is more interested in winning elections than in putting across a particular
policy or law.
?II. Separation of Powers and Checks and Balances
?The 50 states have the right to self-government.
?In other words, there is a separation of powers between two levels of government：
the federal government
the state government
?Three Branches
1. legislative ---- exercises by the Congress
2. executive ---- headed by the President
3. judicial ---- executed by the Supreme Court
?The President
The president should be a citizen born in the U.S. territory, at least 35 years old.
?Salary $400,000(since 2001)
?Work-related expenses $50,000
?Tax-free travel $40,000
?Powers of the President
?President of the U.S. is both the head of state and head of government.
?All the government departments, agencies and offices are led by the President.
?The President is not bound to be responsible to Congress.
?The Cabinet, made up of the heads of the government departments, only advise the
President and does not make any decisions.
?The President must carry out the government programs enacted into law by Congress.
?Powers of the President
?He has a veto power over bills passed by Congress.
?The President has the power of appointing as many as thousands of officers.
?He has the power to conduct the foreign affairs.
?Important officers in the diplomatic service are appointed by the President.
?He can send out personal agents to represent him without the approval of the Senate.
?The President can make treaties with foreign countries.
?The President can make executive agreements with other countries.
?The President is the Commander-in-chief of the armed force.
?The President can start and fight a war if he wants to in a limited period of time.
?The Bureaucracy:
Executive Departments and Agencies
?The Department of State
?The Treasury Department
?Department of Defence
?Department of Justice
?Department of the Interior
?Department of Agriculture
?Department of Labour
?Department of Commerce
?Department of Health and Human Services(HHS)
?Department of Education
?Department of Housing and Urban Development
?Department of Transportation
?Department of Energy
?Postal Service
?The National Aeronautics and Space Administration ( NASA)
?The United States Information Agency
?Relative Size of the Federal Bureaucracy
?The Congress
?to make any laws
?Impose and collect taxes
?Decide expenditures of the government
?Control trade
?Establish monetary system
?Raise and maintain an army and a navy
?The House of Representative
?The Senate
?Senate
? 2 senators for each state
? 6 years
?Over 30 years old
?citizenship for at least 9 years
?Powers of the Senate
1. Ratify treaties
2. Approve the President’s nominees
3. Accusation of federal officials
The Senate is regarded as more powerful of the two Houses.
?House of Representatives
?The number is fixed according to the size of the population of the state.
? 1 representative for over 500,000 people.
?Total number of representatives 435
?Every 10 years the membership of the House is redistributed.
? 2 years elected every second year
?At least 25 years old and citizenship for 7 years
?Powers of the House of Representatives
1.select the President
2.All bills for raising money must be proposed
?The Supreme Court
? A Chief Justice and 8 other judges, life terms by the president with the consent of the
senate.
?Salary $62,500
?The Justices are supposed to withdraw from all political activities.
?All lower courts follow the rulings of the Supreme Court.
?The major powers of the Supreme Court
?1) Interprets laws
?2) Can hear appeals from any federal court cases.
?3) Can hear appeals from state court cases that involve the Constitution or national
laws.
?4) May declare a law unconstitutional.
?5) May declare a presidential act unconstitutional.
?The powers of the Supreme Court can be limited by:
?The President: appoints judges
?Congress: approves the appointments of judges
American History 英美概况美国历史
American History ?I. America in the colonial era ?II. The War of Independence ?III. The Civil War ?IV. America during the two World Wars I. America in the colonial era ?Who were the very first Americans? ?Who was the first one discovering the new continent? ?After whom was the new continent named? I. America in the colonial era ?1.The very first Americans were Indians. ●They created their civilization, known as Maya civilization, dominating Mexico and Central America from 4th to the 10th centuries. ●They were the descendants of the Mongoloid (蒙古人种的) people in Asia. ●About 20,000 years ago, they traveled to the North American continent across the Bering Strait (白令海峡). ?2. Christopher Columbus is believed to have discovered America. ●In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered America. However, he believed he had reached India and called the natives Indians. ?In 1500, Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator, also under the Spanish flag, drew the conclusion that what he found was a new continent. 3. The establishment of colonies ?Since the America was found, the Spanish established many colonies: Florida, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. ?In 1588, the Spanish Armada was defeated by the English navy，which put England in a better position to provide support for its New World colonies. 3. The establishment of colonies ?Between 1607 and 1733 the British established 13 colonies along the east coast of North America. ?These 13 colonies were established in different patterns: ●crown colonies ( 直辖殖民地), ●proprietary colonies ( 业主殖民地), ●charter colonies ( 特许公司殖民地), ●self-governing or compact colonies ( 自治殖民地或契约殖民地). ?1) The first successful English colony in North America was founded at Jamestown, Virginia , in 1607. ?2) In 1620, a group of Pilgrims sailed to the New World in a ship called Mayflower. They arrived at Plymouth, and built the New Plymouth colony in New England. These Pilgrims drew up the epoch-making Mayflower Compact (五月花契约), which was signed by all adult males on the ship. 3. The establishment of colonies ?3) From 1630 to 1643, some 200 ships transported over 20,000 Englishmen to the Massachusetts Bay colony. ?Plymouth remained a separate colony until 1691 when it was combined with Massachusetts Bay colony. Puritans ?People who criticized or wished to "purify" the Church of England. ?"Puritan" refers to two distinct groups: ?"separating" Puritans, radical Protestants, such as the Plymouth colonists, the pilgrims, who believed that the Church of England was corrupt and that true Christians must separate themselves from it; and ?“non-separating” Puritans, such as the colonists who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed in
美国文学名词解释
1. Transcendentalism The origin of it is a philosophical and literary movement centered in Concord and Boston, which marks the summit of American Transcendentalism. 19th-century movement of writers and philosophers in New England who were loosely bound together by adherence to an idealistic system of thought based on a belief in the essential unity of all creation, the innate goodness of man, and the supremacy of insight over logic and experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. The major features of American Transcendentalism are:It emphasis on spirit, or the Oversoul, as the most important thing in the universe. It stressed the importance of the individual. To them the individual was the most important element of society. It offered a fresh perception of nature as symbolic of the Spirit or God. 2.Romanticism The Romanticism period stretches from the end of the 18th century through the outbreak of the Civil War. It is a term associate with imagination boundlessness, and in critical usage is contrasted with classicism which is commonly associated with reason and restriction. The features of Romanticism are: American Romanticism was in a way derivative: American romantic writing was some of them modeled on English and European works. American romanticism was in essence the expression of "a real new experience "and contained"an alien quality".Representatives:William Cullen Bryant; Henry Longfellow and James Cooper, Washington Irving. 3.Realism: In American literature, the Civil War brought the Romantic Period to an end. The Age of Realism came into existence. It came as a reaction against the lie of romanticism and sentimentalism. Realism turned from an emphasis on the strange toward a faithful rendering of the ordinary, a slice of life as it is really lived. It expresses the concern for commonplace and the low, and it offers an objective rather than an idealistic view of human nature and human experience.The representatives are Howells, James, and Mark Twain. 4. Naturalism American naturalism was a new and harsher realism, it had come from Europe. Naturalism was an outgrowth of realism that responded to theories in science, psychology, human behavior and social thought current in the late nineteenth century. The background of naturalism are: In the last decade of the nineteenth century, with the development of industry and modern science, intelligent minds began to see that man was no longer a free ethical being in a cold, indifferent and essentially Godless universe. In this chance world he was both helpless and hopeless.Major Features of it are:Humans are controlled by laws of heredity and environment.The universe is cold, godless, indifferent and hostile to human desires.Representatives of it such as Stephen Crane, Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser. 5.New Criticism The New Criticism as a school of poetry and criticism established itself in the 1940s as an academic orthodoxy in the United States. The school has its beginning in the 1920s. It focus on the analysis of the text rather paying attention to external elements such as its social background, its author's intention and political attitude, and its impact on society. Then it explores the artistic structure of the work rather than its author's frame of mind or its reader's responses. It also see a literary work as an organic entity, the unity of content and form, and places emphasis on the close reading of the text. These New Critics included T.S. Eliot,I.A.Richards,John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate and some other critics. The New Criticism has tended to divorce criticism from social and moral concerns, which was to become one salient feature of the movement. 6.Imagism: Between 1912 and 1922 there came a great poetry boom in which about 1000 poets published over 1000 volumes of poetry. Indeed ,to express the modern spirit, the sense of fragmentization and dislocation, was in large measure the aim of quite a few modern literary movements, of which Imagism was one.The first Imagist theorist, the English writer T.E.Hulme. Hulme suggests that modern art deals with expression and communication of momentary phases in the poet's mind. The most effective means to express these momentary impressions is through the use of dominant image.It is a literary movement launched American poets early in the 20th century that advocated the use of free verse, common speech patterns, and clear concrete images as a reaction to Victorian sentimentalism. The representatives are Ezra pound, William Carlos Williams and some other poets.
美国-国家概况、风土人情
美国概况及风土人情 首先要想做好美国项目就要了解目的国家的历史，政治经济，文化背景，风土人情等。相对于中国具有上下5000年的古老历史文明，美国作为一个新兴的资本主义国家，拥有的历史并不算漫长。 美国历史 最早可以追溯到15世纪左右，那时的美国本土居住着大量的土著印第安人。并没有被近现代文明社会所发现，直至意大利人航海家哥伦布发现了北美洲大陆，在1492-1502，十年间，哥伦布在西班牙的资助下四次横渡大西洋，达到美洲大陆。可以说；是哥伦布把欧洲的现代文明带到了美洲大陆。自从哥伦布发现了现代文明后， 在1776年7月 4日，反对英国殖民者的军队在费城召开了第二次大陆会议，组成“大陆军”，由乔治。华盛顿任总司令，并通过了《独立宣言》，那么这一天就被成为美国历史上最著名的“独立日” 1783年9月3日，独立战争结束。美国成为美洲首个独立国家。” 1787年制定联邦宪法。 1788年乔治。华盛顿当选为第一任总统。
美国地图： 美国位于北美洲中部：东濒大西洋，西滨太平洋，北靠加拿大，南接墨西哥及墨西哥湾。除美国简称USA,US，是由50个州和华盛顿哥伦比亚特区组成的联邦共和立宪制国家。 面积与人口： 美国国土面积世界第四；第一俄罗斯，第二加拿大，第三中国，大约为962.9万平方公里陆地面积915万平方公里，内陆水域面积为20万平方公里，五大湖中美国主权部分约为17万平方公里。河口，港湾，内海等沿海水域面积约10万平方公里。 美国人口约3.1 亿人，数量为世界第三。第一是中国，第二是印度，以白人为主，但有大量的移民人口。 主要城市 华盛顿：纽约所担任的职能仅限于经济范围内，而美国的首都华盛顿是纯粹的政治中心。区别于中国的首都北京所具有的政治经济文化中心的职能所不同的，美国的很多城市都具有单一的职能性。举例来讲美国的首都华盛顿只是政治中心，全程华盛顿D.C。最著名的景点就是美国的国会大厦，白宫，以及白宫正对面的华盛顿纪念碑。 美国的纽约不仅具有金融中心这一特点，同时他也是灾难的中心。他的出名也许会因为股市的反弹一夜暴富，也许会因为911的撞击事件而失去生命。 纽约市The city of New York 金融，文化，艺术的中心 纽约市是美国最大及人口最多的城市，也是全世界最大的都会区之一。 纽约在商业和金融的方面发挥巨大的影响力。该市有曼哈顿区，皇后区，布鲁克林区，布朗克斯区，斯塔腾岛五个区。 纽约市是美国第一大港，同时也是世界第四大都会区，仅次于东京，首尔，墨西哥城。 历史事件：2001年9月11日，911事件，恐怖分子劫持四架飞机，两架分别撞向两座世界贸易中心，一架撞向五角大楼，造成3000人死亡。 洛杉矶City of Los Angeles 洛杉矶是美国第二大城市，仅次于纽约，拥有巨大影响力的国际化大都市。 洛杉矶人口是加州最多的，超过400万人口，仅次于纽约。 大学有；加州理工学院，加州大学洛杉矶分校，南加州大学，洛杉矶加利福尼亚州立大学 旧金山 San Francisco
英美概况---加拿大历史
一、原住民 加拿大的历史可追逆至二万七千年前的冰川期结束的时候。育空地区出土的文物显示，当时已有人类通过因为冰川退缩而显露出来的陆桥，从亚洲迁徙到此地。 这些人是否就是加拿大的原住民因纽特人或印第安人的祖先，目前还没有足够的证据可以作出判断。但是对因纽特人语言的研究指出，他们的语言是古代亚洲语的一种，学术界称之为古亚细亚语系爱斯基摩-阿留申语族。 在卑诗省的的史基纳河谷有证据表明，印第安人至少已经在那里连续居住了五千年。 欧洲人到来之前，印第安人和因纽特人在加拿大的土地上长期靠采集、农耕或渔猎为生。 二、加拿大的发现 写于十三世纪的北欧传奇声称，"红人"艾力克于公元九百八十五年左右到达格陵兰，他的儿子在纽芬壮大的北端建立了一个短暂的定居点。 显然，斯堪的纳维亚的怀金人曾经多次横渡大西洋前往加拿大，随后欧洲的渔民也曾偶尔漂流到此地。但是，有正式文献记载的发现则到十五世纪末才开始。 一四九四年，英国的探险家约翰.卡波特（John Cabot）到达了纽芬兰岛。他发现，这里有些地方鱼群竟稠密到足以降低他的船速的地步。 一五三四年，法国人杰克。卡第艾（Jacques Cartier）到达了对罗伦斯湾。他发现此地盛产珍贵的毛皮。十六世纪上半期，法国航海家多次到达加拿大东海岸，他们把这一带称?quot;新法兰西"。 直到詹姆士.库克（James Cook）船长一七七六至一七七九年的航行探险之后，基督教世界才得知在洛基山脉以西还有大片土地存在。 从一七九二至一七九四年，乔志.温哥华（George Vancouver）在测绘西北海岸线时，以蒙特利乐为基地的西北毛皮公司也在对加拿大西北的内陆进行勘察。 一七九三年，亚历山大.麦肯锡(Alexander Mackenzie)横穿了整个大陆。 一八O八年，西门。弗雷泽（Simon Fletcher）也克服了重重困难，翻越洛基山，发现弗雷泽河，并顺流通到达太平洋的岸边。 一七九八至一八O二年，大卫.汤姆森（David Thomson）花了四年时间，从头到尾勘测了哥伦比亚河。
英美概况美国部分整理
America The Founding of Colonies殖民地的建立 First Inhabitants：American Indians Discovery of the New World： 1492 Christopher Columbus →the discoverer of America (Italian)Spanish Queen’ s support 1501-2 Amerigo Vespucci →the new land was name after him as America. reached the mouth of Amazon River America—the New World Europe—the Old World 13 colonies： New England Colonies: Mid Atlantic Colonies: Southern Colonies: Massachusetts →（2nd colony，1620）New York Maryland New Hampshire Pennsylvania Virginia →（1st colony，1607）Rhode Island Delaware North Carolina Connecticut South Carolina Georgia →（the last colony，1733）New England Region（6个）: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont 建立原因： Virginia, 1607 Virginia Company For foreign expansion as a way of easing religious dispute and economic distress in England 105 men (no women) Jamestown in honor of the king Massachusetts In 1620 102 Puritans (“Pilgrim Fathers”), in Mayflower, from Plymouth in England to America First in Plymouth (today’s Massachusetts); and then Boston Seek religious freedom Mayflower Compact <五月花号公约>：self-government Hardships when arrived the help of the Indians Thanksgiving Day to thank the Indians and the God for protection The next three colonies Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire Reasons: 1. religious disputes and struggles in Massachusetts intensified 2. more immigrants
美国文学名词解释
Allegory is a narrative that serves as an extended metaphor. Allegories are written in the form of fables, parables, poems, stories, and almost any other style or genre. The main purpose of an allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a setting, as well as other types of symbols, that have both literal and figurative meanings. One well-known example of an allegory is Dante’s The Divine Comedy.In Inferno, Dante is on a pilgrimage to try to understand his own life, but his character also represents every man who is in search of his purpose in the world. Alliteration is a pattern of sound that includes the repetition of consonant sounds. The repetition can be located at the beginning of successive words or inside the words. Poets often use alliteration to audibly represent the action that is taking place. Aside is an actor’s speech, directed to the audience, that is not supposed to be heard by other actors on stage. An aside is usually used to let the audience know what a character is about to do or what he or she is thinking. Asides are important because they increase an audience's involvement in a play by giving them vital information pertaining what is happening, both inside of a character's mind and in the plot of the play. Gothic is a literary style popular during the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. This style usually portrayed fantastic tales dealing with horror, despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Gothic literature was named for the apparent influence of the dark gothic architecture of the period on the genre. Also, many of these Gothic tales took places in such “gothic” surroundings. Other times, this story of darkness may occur in a more everyday setting, such as the quaint house where the man goes mad fro m the "beating" of his guilt in Edgar Allan Poe's “The Tell-Tale Heart.”In essence, these stories were romances, largely due to their love of the imaginary over the logical, and were told from many different points of view. CATHARSIS is an emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety. According to Aristotle, catharsis is the marking feature and ultimate end of any tragic artistic work. IMAGERY: A common term of variable meaning, imagery includes the "mental pictures" that readers experience with a passage of literature. It signifies all the sensory perceptions referred to in a poem, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor. Surrealism is an artistic movement doing away with the restrictions of realism and verisimilitude that might be imposed on an artist. In this movement, the artist sought to do away with conscious control and instead respond to the irrational urges of the subconscious mind. From this results the hallucinatory, bizarre, often nightmarish quality of surrealistic paintings and writings. Sample surrealist writers include Frank O'Hara, John Ashberry, and Franz Kafka.
美国历史与文化
《美国历史与文化》 结课论文 专业：化学工程与工艺 学号：041114116 姓名：杨乐
Columbo's influence on the American continent Columbo is a famous Spanish navigator, is a pioneer of the great geographical discovery. Columbus young is garden said believers, he so haunting had in Genoa made prison of Marco Polo, determined to be a navigator.1502 he crossed the Atlantic four times in 1492, discovered the American continent, he also became a famous navigator. On August 3, 1492, Columbus by the king of Spain dispatch, with credentials of Indian monarchs and emperors of China, led the three tons of Baishi of sailing, from Spain Palos Yang Fan of the Atlantic, straight towards to the West. After seventy days and nights of hard sailing, in the early morning of October 12, 1492 finally found the land. Columbo thought he had arrived in India. Later know that Columbus landed on a piece of land belonging to the now Balak America than the sea in the Bahamas, he was it named San Salvador. Columbo's discovery has changed the course of world history. It opens up a new era of development and colonization in the new world. At that time, the European population was expanding, with this discovery, the Europeans have settled in two new continents, there will be able to make a difference in the European economy and the resources of the mineral resources and raw materials. This discovery led to the destruction of the American Indian civilization. From a long-term point of view, there have been a number of new countries in the Western
英美概况 美国篇
一、概况 1.50 States Its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Caribbean and Pacific. 2.Races and Population 在东部时间2006年10月17日早晨7点46分，美国人口总数突破三亿大关，这是美国人口史上具有里程碑意义的一刻。3.06188亿（2009年，世界国家和地区第3名，次于中国、印度） 3.The Composition of American Population 1)The Majority:the descendants of immigrants from European countries, such as France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Spain;“Pilgrim Fathers”;Potato famine 2)The Minorities:The African Americans: black slaves from Africa;Indians: the number of native Americans has been falling, no more than a million;The Hispanics: immigrants or descendents of immigrants from Latin America, such as Cuba and Mexico (Mexicans are the most numerous among them);Asian-Americans, from China, Japan and Korea;More than a million Chinese-Americans, most of whom live in Hawaii, on the West Coast and in some big cities;5 million Jews in America, many of whom went there during the Second World War and achieved great success in America. 3)“The Melting Pot”:It means immigrants from different nations all over the world have mixed to make up the American nation.“old immigrants”: came to America before 1860;“new immigrants”, after 1860.The Immigration Quota Law was passed by the American government in 1924. 二、Early History 1.Columbus：1492 Christopher Columbus arrived at Salvador Island, thus discovered the “New World”.(Amerigo V espucci: named “America”) 2.The first English permanent settlement:1607 The first group of English colonies came to America and built their settlement of Charleston which later was expanded into the first English colony known as Virginia. 3.Pilgrim Fathers:1620 Some English immigrants (Puritans) sailed into Plymouth on a ship called the “Mayflower”.102 Puritans, 60 days.Mayflower Compact, “one man one vote”, “one-man rule” 4.The values of Puritans:hard work; commercial success; the importance of education 5.Thanksgiving:1621 Thanksgiving Day was first celebrated by the pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony. 三、American Revolutionary
美国文学名词解释
American Dream: American dream means the belief that everyone can succeed as long as he/she works hard enough. It usually implies a successful and satisfying life. It usually framed in terms of American capitalism（资本主义）, its associated purported meritocracy,（知识界精华）and the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Bill of Rights. American Puritanism清教主义: Puritanism is the practices and beliefs of the puritans. The Puritans were originally members of a division of the protestant church who wanted to purify their religious beliefs and practices. They accepted the doctrines of predestination, original sin and total depravity, and limited atonement through a special infusion of grace from God. American literature in the 17th century mostly consisted of Puritan literature. Puritanism had an enduring influence on American literature. It had become, to some extent, so much a state of mind, so much a part of national cultural atmosphere, rather than a set of tenets. Transcendentalism 超验主义: Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. Transcendentalists spoke for cultural rejuvenation and against the materialism of American society. It placed emphasis on spirit, or the Over soul, as the most important thing in the world. It stressed the importance of individual and offered a fresh perception nature ad symbolic of the spirit of God. Prominent transcendentalists included Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thorough. American Naturalism自然主义: American naturalism was a new and harsher realism. The naturalists attempt to achieve extreme objectivity and frankness, presenting characters of low social and economic classes who were determined by environment and heredity. It emphasized that the world was amoral, the men and women had no free will, that lives were controlled by heredity and environment, that the destiny of humanity was misery in life and oblivion in death. The pessimism and deterministic ideas naturalism pervaded the works of such American writers as Stephen Crane and Theodore Dreiser. American Naturalism(美国自然主义文学)：The American naturalists accepted the more negative interpretation of Darwin’s evolutionary theory and used it to account for t he behavior of those characters in literary works who were regarded as more or less complex combinations of inherited attributes, their habits conditioned by social and economic forces.2) naturalism is evolved from realism when the author’s tone in writing becomes less serious and less sympathetic but more ironic and more pessimistic. It is no more than a gloomy philosophical approach to reality, or to human existence.3>Dreiser is a leading figure of his school. The Gilded Age镀金时代:the Gilded Age refers to the era of rapid economic and population growth in the United States during the post-Civil War and post-Reconstruction eras of the late 19th century. The term "Gilded Age" was coined by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner in their 1873 book, The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.The Gilded Age is most famous for the creation of a modern industrial economy. The end of the Gilded Age coincided with the Panic of 1893, a deep depression. The depression lasted until 1897 and marked a major political realignment in the election of 1896. After that came the Progressive Era. The Lost Generation: The Lost Generation is a group of expatriate American writers residing primarily in Paris during the 1920s and 1930s. The group was given its name by the American writer Gertrude Stein, who used “a lost generation” to refer to expatriate Americans bitter about their World War I experiences and disillusioned with American