Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

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
Reissued with a new preface: the Pulitzer Prize-winning book that is "quite simply the best book ever written on the Scopes Trial and its place in American history and myth."

In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the setting for one of the 20th century's most contentious dramas: the Scopes trial that pit William Jennings Bryan and the anti-Darwinists against a teacher named John Scopes into a famous debate over science, religion, and their place in public education.

That trial marked the start of a battle that continues to this day--in Dover, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Cobb County, Georgia, and many other cities and states throughout the country. Edward Larson's classic, Summer for the Gods, received the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1998 and is the single most authoritative account of a pivotal event whose combatants remain at odds in school districts and courtrooms. 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.

As I read I found myself marveling at how Larson so richly captures the cultural forces coming together like tectonic plates and crashing into the Scopes trial. I haven't seen as fair a treatment of the issues involved for all the varying parties (there were many more self-interested folks than Darrow and Bryan) on any other subject. To have that time before the trial captured in such a beautiful way is very valuable.

As others have noted, the notion of the trial started as a publicity stunt to promote the hard luck town of Dayton, TN. The ACLU wanted a narrowly defined test case to overturn the laws forbidding the teaching of evolution. Darrow and his crowd wanted to attack religion more than work out the civil liberties issues involved, Bryan cared more about the rights of the parents as taxpayers to control what their children were taught. Remember, universal public education was still a rather new thing in 1925 and parents then, as now, want to have the education support them in raising their children. The education establishment then, as now, feels a responsibility to teach what they think best.

Bryan and many others were also concerned about the political uses to which evolution had recently been put in the name of survival of the fittest. It isn't a simple issue and shouldn't be turned into a cartoon. Especially since we are in some ways still grappling with these issues.

Yes, Bryan was also a Fundamentalist (although some were more Fundamental than him because he didn't insist on the strict 6 days of 24 hours for the Creation), but imposing that belief wasn't his goal.

Clarifying the truth of the trial versus the popular perceptions in our culture provided by "Only Yesterday" and "Inherit the Wind" is a very valuable service provided by this book. However, the culture seems to want the oversimplification and distortions of "Inherit the Wind" more than the truth of Scopes being a willing participant in a test case more or less on a lark. Or that Scopes never really "taught" evolution. He had used the textbook provided to him by the school and it discussed evolution, but he may never have gotten to that section since he wasn't the regular biology teacher. He taught physics, math, and football and was substituting in the biology class.

The book has a number of very nice pictures that also help capture the period of the trial and the characters involved.

One especially small quibble is that the book does not address the difference between the anti-clerical activities in Great Britain and their political nature because of the state power of the Church and the anti-clerical activities in the United States that were really anti-religion. In fact, a great deal of the fundamentalist backlash against evolution came out of this anti-religion sentiment.

I think it a reasonable view to say that most of the reaction against evolution wasn't from a considered rejection of the theory, but a reaction against being attacked by those who wanted to free America of religion. We didn't have a state church, although most in power were also believers (or publicly posed as believers). The anti-clerical movement was transplanted but to somewhat different effect here than in Europe where evolution was not seen as necessarily inconsistent with Faith (as it has become to be viewed here). But this is a trivial point compared to many wonderful insights this book provides.


"...A trivial thing full of humbuggery and hyprocrisy"   September 9, 2006
Publius (Utopia)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

The Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 combined two great American virtues: 1.) Individual Rights and 2.) The need to make a quick buck. One of the aspects of Larson's book that really comes through is how staged the whole trial was. From the initial meeting of the town fathers with Scopes to convince him to be a Defendant, to the State's decision to nolle prosse the conviction after it was overturned on a technicality, most everything was merely thespian. One of the most insightful stories that Larson relates is when the team of ACLU defense lawyers arrived in Dayton for trial preparation, a young man started to help them with their luggage out of the trunk. One of the lawyers shouted: "Hey boy, what are you doing with those suitcases!" Little did the lawyer know that that boy was John Scopes, the teacher that was charged with teaching evolution in a Tennessee public school. As Larson writes: "The defenders, along with everyone else, had forgotten the defendant." The author writes in this great concise book that the Scopes Monkey trial was less about Scopes, Darrow or Bryan and more about emerging fundamentalism versus a growing American concern of individual rights and liberties. As such, Dayton and John Scopes were essentially bit players in a staged battle between forces that still determine how Americans feel and think to this day. Not only does Larson concern himself with the broader sociological effects of the trial, he also talks about the ACLU's and the prosecutions trial strategy, which, as a lawyer, I found fascinating. Contemporary history has interpreted the Scopes Trial as the high water mark of Fundamentalism, being that the Butler Act and other similar legislation has been struck down as unconstitutional. "Summer" makes this very plain that this in fact was the opening salvo in the Fundamentalist battle and not the death throes. It is not a stretch to argue that the beginnings of the Mega-Church and the Fundamentalist college movement began in Dayton in 1925. Thus, as H.L. Mencken wrote that year: the fundamentalists and "Bryan started something that it will not be easy to stop."


Balanced and accurate account of Monkey Trial   October 13, 1999
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

A very well written account of not only the historical aspect of but also the legacy of the Scopes trial. I thoroughly enjoyed every page of the book. Edward Larson writes in a style that is easy to follow and understandable. He divides the book into three sections: Before, during and after the trial. In each section he guides and lays out the historical background of the events and players involved in the Scopes trial. He begins with Darwin and the Origin of Species and lays out how it developed into a controversy in the States. He also introduces to us all the major players involved in the case. He does not simply bring the players in for the trial, but helps us to understand who they are with their background information. He does a very good job of helping the readers grasp the agendas as well as emotions and agendas that each players brought to the trials. He has made me understand the Scopes trial in a much better light.

In 1925, Tennessee passed a law banning the teaching of human evolution in public schools. The ACLU quickly jumped in with their agenda of individual freedom. Dayton jumped in with getting their name placed on the map. Bryan got involved with majoritarianism and Christian fundamentalism. The scientists got involved with academic freedom. Darrow got involved with ridding America of bigots. Scopes got caught in the middle of all this. In the end, Larson writes that both sides achieved moral victory.

In the last section of his book, Larson covers the legacy and the legend of Scopes trial in the American cultural scene. He clearly lays out that Only Yesterday and Inherit the Wind provided false impression of the Scopes trial on the minds of American public for over half a century. However, he states that it was not only Broadway that added to the false impression but also both historians and academians who further fueled the false impression of the Scopes trial. He states that it is these false impressions that have contributed to the ongoing culture war between science and religion.

No historian or writer can be truly objective. Given that, I believe that Larson has written an objective account of the Scopes trial as is possible. I did not get the feeling that he was writing for or against either side. If Larson had an agenda or a bias in writing this book, it appeared to me that he wanted to put out a more balanced account of the Scopes trial than the one proposed by Only Yesterday and Inherit the Wind (although I personally have not seen either of the plays or screen version of them). He saw the Hollywood, the media and the academia misunderstanding the central issue of the Scopes trial from Inherit the Wind, and it appeared that he wanted to write a more accurate account of the trial. To me, it appeared that he did so. He seemed to have done an extensive research of biographies, newspaper accounts and interviews. He cites and critiques many accounts of the trial on both sides. He also critiques and provides his own analysis of the players involved in the trial. I believe that Summer for the Gods is a well balanced account of the Scopes trial and should be read by all who are interested in the continuing debate over science and religion in America.


Pulitzer Prize-winner, and deservedly so   March 6, 2001
Karl (England, Great Britain)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful

The Scopes Monkey Trial of July, 1925 must surely be one of the most misunderstood events in American history.
Numerous school district reading lists (on the Internet) describe the play/film "Inherit the Wind" as though it were an historically accurate account of the trial.
Worse yet, an American professor of law, interviewed by Australian radio station ABC Radio National, in March 1999 (transcript is on the Internet) managed to get wrong:
The way in which Scopes became involved
The length of the trial
How Bryan and Darrow got involved
And even the decade ion which the US Supreme Court handed down the Arkansas decision on the constitutionality of teaching creationism!

So thank the Lord and pass Edward Larson's "Summer for the Gods", a supreme work of scholarship, yet written in the kind of high-readability style of a John Grisham thriller.

The only other attempt to make a thorough, FACTUAL study of the Scopes Trial was Ray Ginger's 1958 book "Six Days or Forever?". Unfortunately the validity of that earlier work was seriously undermined by Ginger's very obvious bias, especially against William Jennings Bryan.

Larson's book suffers from no such flaws, as far as I can tell, treating both defense and prosecution in a thoroughly even-handed fashion. Having said that, Larson does uncover the truth about several myths surrounding the trial - such as the "real" reason why the defense experts only gave their evidence in the form of affadavits.
(It wasn't as simple as the Judge refusing to allow expert testimony.)

There's much, much more I could say in praise of this book, but it all boils down to this:
If you have any interest whatever in the Scopes Monkey Trial, you won't find a better book on the subject than this.


Proves again that the real story is always more interesting.   May 19, 1999
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Edward Larson's "Summer for the Gods" is a masterpiece of historical writing for several reasons: Mr. Larson always maintains his objectivity; the story is set in the proper context of its times; and finally Mr. Larson devotes attention to the effect of the infamous Scopes trial. Having been raised on "Inherit the Wind," the fictional version of the trial, I was astounded to learn the truth behind the trial and of its eventual impact. Mr. Larson makes the story fresh even after 74 years, and as noted earlier he takes an objective approach to all sides of the trial. In doing so, Mr. Larson corrects several historical misconceptions and William Jennings Bryan at last regains his standing as a remarkable American politician. The narrative is crisp and never bogs down the story. I highly recommend this book.