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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 345.730288
EAN: 9780674854291
ISBN: 0674854292
Label: Harvard University Press
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: November 15, 1998
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Studio: Harvard University Press

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Editorial Review:

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.

Product Description:
In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the unlikely setting for one of our century's most contentious dramas: the Scopes trial and the ensuing debate over science, religion, and their place in education. Pairing archival material with the author's keen legal and historical analysis, this book provides a fresh interpretation of this pivotal event in American history.




Rating: - Amazingly descriptive, and entertaining.
Wow! Larson's book is one that I had a difficult time putting down. I was familiar with the 'Scopes' trial a bit before hand, but had no idea that the trial wasn't really about Scopes at all. He even describes himself as a spectator at his own trial, in which the bigger argument was being showcased. And we all know what that argument was. I was amazed at the lack of objectivity that some in the trial displayed, such as Judge Raulston. It definitely seems sketchy to me when they hold prayer before ... Read More

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Rating: - Monkey trouble.
This is an excellent and well-researched account of the Scopes Monkey Trial and the author skillfully dismantles much of the mythology surrounding the event. Recommended for anyone on either side of the evolution debate.

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Rating: - Outstanding Book About Science and History
Edward Larson's book: Summer for the Gods is a Pulitzer Prize winning exploration of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial held in Dayton, Tennessee. In this extremely well researched book Larson looks at the many myths surrounding what many consider to be the trial of the twentieth century. Most of us have based our understanding of the trial on the play Inherit the Wind. Larson shows the play to be in many ways misleading and inaccurate. Scopes himself is actually a physics and math teacher called in ... Read More

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Rating: - The Facts, yes--but still more Drama than Debate
In order to be credible to all sides in a highly-partisan cultural war, professor of law and history Edward J. Larson in his book "Summer of the Gods: The Scopes Trial And America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion" had to present the facts and nothing but the facts ("so help him God" or not). This is the book's necessary strength and its unfortunate weakness. I would like to have heard more reflection.

Much light could come just from placing the historical scene in a ... Read More

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Rating: - Great coverage of the trial; of its aftermath, not so much...
The author did a great job of demystifying the trial, a task long overdue. The question was whether a state or community could prohibit teaching any theory or doctrine in the public classroom, and jury had decided that it could. If young Scopes was teaching Marx's theory of class struggle in history class, I think the outcome would have been the same, though I doubt there would have been even a fictionalized account opening on Broadway, thirty years later.

Yet somehow, because the theory ... Read More

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