Underscoring the essential skills of reading and writing in multiple fields of knowledge, Crosscurrents is a thematic reader that connects ideas and texts from across the disciplines. With its rich variety of readings that span the major college disciplines, Crosscurrents is a true writing across the curriculum reader. Three introductory chapters on critical reading, thinking, and research (Part 1) provide a broad, yet concise rhetoric that orients both students and instructors to disciplines that may be outside their comfort zone or areas of expertise. These chapters offer assistance in reading and comprehending material in each of the disciplines. Foundational, seminal readings foreground each of the eight thematic chapters in Part 2; additional, mainly contemporary, selections drawn from print and electronic books, journals, and general interest periodicals provide a wide range of source materials so that students can further understand each discipline and its intricacies.