Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion | Date: 28 April 2011, 06:37
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Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion
By Edward J. Larson
* Publisher: Harvard University Press
* Number Of Pages: 336
* Publication Date: 1998-11-15
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0674854292
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780674854291
Product Description
A re-issue with a new preface, this is the 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning book. In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the unlikely setting for one of the 20th century's most contentious dramas: the Scopes trial and the debate over science, religion and their place in public education. The "trial of the century" not only cast Dayton into the national spotlight, it epitomized America's ongoing struggle between religious liberty and majority democracy. The "Monkey Trial", as it was nicknamed, was instigated by the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge a controversial Tennessee law banning the teaching of human evolution in state schools. The Tennessee statute represented the first major victory for an intense national campaign against Darwinism, launched in the 1920s by Protestant fundamentalists and led by the famed politician and orator William Jennings Bryan. At the behest of the ACLU, a teacher named John Scopes agreed to challenge the statute. What resulted was a trial of mythic proportions. Bryan joined the prosecutors, and the acclaimed criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow led the defence - a dramatic legal match that drew enormous media attention and later inspired the classic play Inherit the Wind. The Scopes trial was a watershed in America's discussion of science and religion, and marked the beginning of a battle that continues to this day in many states and cities across the country. Edward Larson's classic book on the trial, "Summer for the Gods", received the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1998 and remains the single most authoritative account of a pivotal event whose combatants remain at odds in school districts and courtrooms throughout the country. For this edition, Larson has added a new preface that assesses the state of the battle between creationism and evolution, and points the way to how it might potentially be resolved.
Amazon.com Review:
If you haven't seen the film version of Inherit the Wind, you might have read it in high school. And even people who have never heard of either the movie or the play probably know something about the events that inspired them: The 1925 Scopes "monkey trial," during which Darwin's theory of evolution was essentially put on trial before the nation. Inherit the Wind paints a romantic picture of John Scopes as a principled biology teacher driven to present scientific theory to his students, even in the teeth of a Tennessee state law prohibiting the teaching of anything other than creationism. The truth, it turns out, was something quite different. In his fascinating history of the Scopes trial, Summer for the Gods, Edward J. Larson makes it abundantly clear that Truth and the Purity of Science had very little to do with the Scopes case. Tennessee had passed a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution, and the American Civil Liberties Union responded by advertising statewide for a high-school teacher willing to defy the law. Communities all across Tennessee saw an opportunity to put themselves on the map by hosting such a controversial trial, but it was the town of Dayton that came up with a sacrificial victim: John Scopes, a man who knew little about evolution and wasn't even the class's regular teacher. Chosen by the city fathers, Scopes obligingly broke the law and was carted off to jail to await trial.
What happened next was a bizarre mix of theatrics and law, enacted by William Jennings Bryan for the prosecution and Clarence Darrow for the defense. Though Darrow lost the trial, he made his point--and his career--by calling Bryan, a noted Bible expert, as a witness for the defense. Summer for the Gods is a remarkable retelling of the trial and the events leading up to it, proof positive that truth is stranger than science.
Summary: A little dry
Rating: 3
I'm only a quarter or so through the book. It is an interesting, very thorough historical account. But, a little dry.
Summary: Literary Nectar for the Gods
Rating: 5
Summer for the Gods, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for history, is a rare and enthralling read. This book about the famous Monkey Trial is probably THE authoritative book on the subject, with 38 pages of references giving testament to author Edward Larson's astoundingly comprehensive approach to what is often referred to as "the trial of the century".
Comprehensive research is always admirable, but is not sufficient to create an outstanding book. Summer for the Gods is far more than a recitation of compulsively excavated historical fact, though if that is what floats your boat, you'll love the book for that alone. What sets the book apart is that slowly, gradually, as you read the tangled web of forces that eventually coalesced to weave the "trial of the century", one realizes that Larson's book is not simply about evolution versus religion: it is about the most populous, complex, and cantankerous of all the primates: Homo sapiens.
The Scopes trial had so many wagons attached to its star (Emerson: "Hitch your wagon to a star") that the rumbling made by their passage raised a dust cloud that has still not settled today. States rights, North versus South, the militant atheism of Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan's grasping at receding fame, intellectual freedom, the upsurge of the novel concept of Biblical literalism, the ACLU ferociously defending civil liberties....the list of issues swirling around the town of Dayton as the trial convened was both long and fascinating.
It might be possible to argue that all GREAT literature serves as a mirror, as opposed to literature that merely informs, titillates, or helps pass a pleasant interlude on a summer day. Summer for the Gods is a high definition mirror, an exquisite reflection on the nature of being human, and a potent reminder that however much we laud our left brain rationale, it is inextricably linked to the mysterious tides of the right brain. A bit too hokey for you? Let me try again: Larson's Summer for the Gods might be the best proof ever that whenever a gargantuan controversy arises, it is NEVER solely about the stated issues. The richness and pathos of Summer for the Gods far transcends the very worthy debate about science versus religion.
Who will like this book? Those who take pride in having a world view that has both depth and breadth will find Summer for the Gods adds considerably to both of these dimensions. Who might not? This book, though quite readable and accessible, is a serious work of scholarship. It is not Inherit the Wind in book form. Some serious reworking of synapses will occur. This can be uncomfortable....and deeply rewarding for the effort expended.
Legal beagles: you'll love it. Historians: you will bow down before it in awe. Champions of academic freedom: you'll both cheer and grind your teeth. Seekers of wisdom: drink this one in to your heart's content. Member of the human race: look in this mirror with both anticipation and trepidation.
Summary: Complementary readings to Larson's interesting book
Rating: 5
There are already many good reviews to this book, so I will only suggest reading the following books in addition to Larson's book: a) "Why evolution is true" by Jerry A. Coyne; b) "The Counter-Creationism Handbook" by Mark Isaak; c) "God on Trial: Dispatches from America's Religious Battlefields" by Peter Irons; and d) A two -volumes biography: "Charles Darwin: Voyaging/Power of Place" by Janet Browne [remember, Darwin was borne 200 years ago].
Summary: The Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 pitted evolutionists against Christian f undamentalism
Rating: 4
On July 10, 1925 Americ
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