Rating: 
Summary: Making Monkeys Out of Americans
Review: This the ultimate book on the Scopes trail and its depressing impact upon the US. If you are expecting a straight read about the forces of repression and ignorance battling the forces of science, reason, and tolerance you will be sadly disappointed. The Scopes trail had nothing to do with basic biology. It was a battle of lawyers, made for and persued by them for their own, at times rather personal motives. This books chronicles the advent of trial in the Chemists Shop in Dayton Tenessee when a few leading citizens --- neither clever or passionate Darwinians, nor particularly blathering, foaming at the mouth fundamentalists --- unabashed opportunists who wanted to put an declining town on the map with the trial of the century. Scopes over sodas with both sides decides that he will "have a go" at making it a test case as to whether evolution can be taught in Tennessee -- so much for the repression. From these humble beginnings starts a third rate farce with everyone wanting to get in on the act. Some were legitimate entities, such as the ACLU lawyers -- very dedicated and committed people -- perhaps the true heros of this saga. But others such as Darrow and Bryan, although obviously acting from deeply held emotions offered no basis to defend their beliefs. Darrow offerred little evidence of what we would know as natural selection, and Bryan could not defend his belief in a Biblical interpretation of the creation ofthe earth as given in Genesis. The real argument became a legal one with Bryan defending the rights of the majority to teach whatever taxpayers thought they wanted to teach (whether it was correct or not!), majoritism, and Darrow defending the right of people to teach scientific based education, because it was unreasonable to teach majority held opinion if it was at odds with elementary understandings of Science. And this is where the debaters dug in their heels. Bryan, nor anyone else, could prove that Genesis was true. Darrow could prove evolution, but that did not make him correct if the majority of people, choosing ignorance over fact, chose not to believe it. The book does a good job at describing the minutea of the defence and cross-exacmination, the legal cases of both sides, and the trail itself. It also does a good job in describing the pre and post Scopes legal challenges launched by both causes in America. Although the creationists were plain wrong, this is not a simple story of the light of science versus a bunch of southern rednecks. There are a lot of interesting vignettes: although Bryan did defend his idea of bible creationism, he was also worried about the evolving "science" of Eugenics and he rightly forsaw the potential to use evolution to relegate people into different classes as result of "proper" and "improper" breeding; some Southern Black churches also defended the prosecution on similar grounds. This was just the beginning of the hayday of Eugenics and Naziism, where transmogrified understandings of Evolution underwrote some horrible ideologies. This book took the Pulitzer in History. It is not that good in my estimation. Fair and well researched, yes, but at times the narrative drags as Larson gets bogged down in legal historical details (such as the chapter called "Jockeying for Position"). Larson is a lawyer and confines himself to law and history. There is no review of natural selection as it was then interpreted, and, as Larson points out, Darrow had only a vague notion of its intrisic reasonableness. Darrow actually cited and conducted the trail on a largely (mistaken) notion of Lamarkian evolution --- a common enough mistake -- still. This is a book that I enjoyed, but it didn't set my heart racing. It offers an depressing read on the quintessentially American experience: how a society relatively free, a bastion of most scientific enlightenment and knowledge can allow such ignorance of science to the degree that people actually believe in a literal interpretation of Biblical allegory in the 20th and the 21st Century....and how Americans can allow both to be exploited for political grandstanding.
Rating:
Summary: The Definitive Work on The Scopes Trial
Review: This was a very good book. Having the whole fiasco narrated in such detail completely changed my impression of both the defense and the prosecution. I was surprised to learn what a jerk Clarence Darrow was - and how the ACLU kept trying to manipulate him out of the trial. Also corrected were some of my misunderstandings (and misgivings) about fundamentalism and Freethought (in the trademarked sense of the word) in the twenties and thirties. Read this book and learn how the Scopes trial was an early pre-television episode of Reality T.V. Compared to it, "Inherit the Wind" is almost real.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent and enlightening
Review: Well! I'm glad I read this!
The "Scopes Monkey Trial" has fascinated me for years. Like many others, however, the majority of my knowledge came from the movie/play "Inherit The Wind."
This book clearly and in great detail gives us the story of the actual trial, including many quotes from the trial transcript and contemporary newspaper accounts and editorials. It explains the political atmosphere of the "Roaring Twenties" and delineates the chain of events and political thinking that led to the enactment of the Tennessee anti-evolution law and the subsequent trial of John Scopes of Dayton, Tennessee, for teaching evolution in spite of the law. (I was astounded to learn that Mr. Scopes was enlisted by the town fathers to flout the law as a method to garner publicity for their dying town.)
The author also provides an in-depth analysis of "Inherit The Wind" and its place in history, plus a detailed (and scary) look at the more recent creationist surge in the American education system.
An excellent book, well-researched and documented.
Rating:
Summary: "Much Ado About Nothing" Becomes "Inherit the Wind"
Review: William Jennings Bryan, a well-intentioned but scientifically clueless crusader, sought legislation prohibiting the teaching of evolution. He opposed the teaching of evolution because he saw it as casting doubt on God's creation and portraying man as little more than a clever animal. When the legislation was being considered, he asked that it have no penalty provision. Upon the passage of the legislation, the ACLU, which had yet to win a civil rights case, offered to pay the legal expenses of any teacher brave enough to defy the law. Prominent civic leaders of an economically depressed backwater town prevailed upon a young teacher to stand trial for violating the law as a publicity stunt. What resulted was one of the most farcical trials in the history of American jurisprudence. William Jennings Bryan, who had joined the prosecution team, offered to pay the defendant's fine if he was convicted. The defense wanted to lose so badly that they asked the jury to convict. The centerpiece of the defense was the "cross examination" of Bryan, one of the prosecutors. The resulting conviction led to a wave of anti-evolution legislation throughout the South. Both sides had hoped that the trial would demonstrate the truth of their positions. As the fictional barrister, Horace Rumpole, once said, "A criminal trial is a pretty blunt instrument for prising out the truth." Both sides wound up suffering devastating blows. Bryan, the champion of anti-evolution, came off looking like an idiot. Darrow, the "champion" of enlightenment, came off looking like a jerk. The Vanderbilt University humanist and champion of evolution, Edwin Mims, said "When Clarence Darrow is put forth as the champion of the forces of enlightenment to fight the battle for scientific knowledge, one feels almost persuaded to become a Fundamentalist." Larsen summed it up thus: "[T]he nation's press initially saw little of lasting significance in the trial beyond its having exposed Bryan's empty head and Darrow's mean spirit." p. 202. The vicious witchhunt of legend is thus exposed as nonsensical farce perpetrated by publicity hounds. It was not until the McCarthy-era morality play, "Inherit the Wind," reinterpreted the trial that it took on the mythic proportions which it has today. Larsen gives an even-handed account of the proceedings and explains the trial's place in both history and legend.
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