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

In the summer of 1925, the sleepy hamlet of Dayton, Tennessee, became the setting for one of the twentieth century’s most contentious courtroom dramas, pitting William Jennings Bryan and the anti-Darwinists against a teacher named John Scopes, represented by Clarence Darrow and the ACLU, in 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 cities and states throughout the country.

Edward Larson’s classic Summer for the Gods – winner of the Pulitzer Prize in History – is the single most authoritative account of this pivotal event. An afterword assesses the state of the battle between creationism and evolution, and points the way to how it might potentially be resolved.