50 Essays

Edited by Samuel Cohen and published by Bedford/St. Martin's, 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology, 7th Edition offers a compact selection of non-fiction texts for postsecondary writing courses. Published in 2023, this anthology supports students and instructors by providing accessible prose models across multiple rhetorical modes.

The selections connect historical political writing with contemporary discussions of American democracy, identity, and social movements. Classic texts include Thomas Jefferson's 'The Declaration of Independence' alongside Henry David Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'. Contemporary selections like Malcolm Gladwell's 'Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted' encourage readers to evaluate public discourse and digital activism.

To support varied course designs, the volume offers alternative tables of contents arranged by purpose, theme, chronological sequence, paired readings, and rhetorical mode. Instructors can structure assignments around specific thematic groupings or comparative essay pairings. This structural flexibility helps students examine how writers construct arguments across different eras and styles.