Summer for the Gods
Subtitle: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate over Science and Religion
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: November 15, 1998
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9780674854291
Subjects: American history: from c 1900 -; Philosophy of religion; Social law; United States; Life Sciences - Evolution; History: American; Social Science; History - U.S.; Trials, litigation, etc; Sociology; USA; Scopes, John Thomas; Legal History; United States - 20th Century/20s; Anthropology - General; Evolution; Law and legislation; Study and teaching
Description: "With this authoritative and engaging book, Edward J. Larson examines the many facets of the Scopes trial and shows how its enduring legacy has crossed religious, cultural, educational, and political lines." "The "Monkey Trial," as it was playfully nicknamed, was instigated by the American Civil Liberties Union to challenge a controversial Tennessee law banning the teaching of human evolution in public 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, and what resulted was a trial of mythic proportions. Bryan joined the prosecutors and acclaimed criminal attorney Clarence Darrow led the defense - a dramatic legal matchup that spurred enormous media attention and later inspired the classic play Inherit the Wind." "The Scopes trial marked a watershed in our national discussion of science and religion. In addition to symbolizing the clash between evolutionists and creationists, the trial helped shape the development of both popular religion and constitutional law in America, serving as a precedent for more recent legal and political battles."--BOOK JACKET.