An instructive history with a disturbing coda: If you want to learn about evolution, go to college.
Fox News commentator Jarrett’s account of the iconic 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial turns out to be a satisfying traditional history that celebrates the good guys.
Although widely derided, the flurry of post–World War I state laws forbidding public schools from teaching evolution enjoyed a great deal of popular support. Concerned about the effect on academic freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union ran a news release seeking a volunteer to test the newly enacted Tennessee law. The trial took place in the small town of Dayton only because local boosters believed it “would put [the town] on the map.” They persuaded high school teacher John Scopes to offer himself as defendant. News of the case made headlines, and a mass of journalists descended on the city along with celebrities, including William Jennings Bryan and legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow. With a churchgoing jury and biased judge who began the proceedings by declaiming the first chapter of Genesis, the outcome was never in doubt, but Jarrett remains firmly for the defense, praising Darrow’s and colleagues’ arguments in favor of First Amendment freedoms and opposing religious bigotry and government interference in education. To Darrow’s frustration, the judge ruled that the trial was solely to determine whether Scopes broke the law, so he refused to allow the defense to call scientists and theologians to inform the jury that evolution was not equivalent to atheism. After several frustrating days, Darrow grew discouraged, and many reporters left before he hit the jackpot cross-examining Bryan, who had volunteered to prove the literal truth of everything in the Bible and did a terrible job. Despite an upbeat conclusion, Jarrett admits that there is less in Darrow’s triumph than meets the eye. Disbelief in evolution remains common, so school boards (and publishers anxious to sell them science textbooks) treat the subject with kid gloves.
An instructive history with a disturbing coda: If you want to learn about evolution, go to college.Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9781982198572
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Threshold Editions/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
The sub-title of this book is "Reflections on Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms of Schools." But one finds in it little about education, and less about the teaching of English. Nor is this volume a defense of the Christian faith similar to other books from the pen of C. S. Lewis. The three lectures comprising the book are rather rambling talks about life and literature and philosophy. Those who have come to expect from Lewis penetrating satire and a subtle sense of humor, used to buttress a real Christian faith, will be disappointed.
Pub Date: April 8, 1947
ISBN: 1609421477
Page Count: -
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1947
A concise personal and scholarly history that avoids academic jargon as it illuminates emotional truths.
The Harvard historian and Texas native demonstrates what the holiday means to her and to the rest of the nation.
Initially celebrated primarily by Black Texans, Juneteenth refers to June 19, 1865, when a Union general arrived in Galveston to proclaim the end of slavery with the defeat of the Confederacy. If only history were that simple. In her latest, Gordon-Reed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and numerous other honors, describes how Whites raged and committed violence against celebratory Blacks as racism in Texas and across the country continued to spread through segregation, Jim Crow laws, and separate-but-equal rationalizations. As Gordon-Reed amply shows in this smooth combination of memoir, essay, and history, such racism is by no means a thing of the past, even as Juneteenth has come to be celebrated by all of Texas and throughout the U.S. The Galveston announcement, notes the author, came well after the Emancipation Proclamation but before the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Though Gordon-Reed writes fondly of her native state, especially the strong familial ties and sense of community, she acknowledges her challenges as a woman of color in a state where “the image of Texas has a gender and a race: “Texas is a White man.” The author astutely explores “what that means for everyone who lives in Texas and is not a White man.” With all of its diversity and geographic expanse, Texas also has a singular history—as part of Mexico, as its own republic from 1836 to 1846, and as a place that “has connections to people of African descent that go back centuries.” All of this provides context for the uniqueness of this historical moment, which Gordon-Reed explores with her characteristic rigor and insight.
A concise personal and scholarly history that avoids academic jargon as it illuminates emotional truths.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-883-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
