Supposedly all about the 1925 Scopes trial, the teaching of evolution in Tennessee school, that trial is barely mentioned except for in the16 page preface until one gets to half way through the book. Instead, the New York author provides a detailed background of the culture, religions, wars, strikes bigotry, politics, philosophy and violence of early 20th century American life. This is in part from the starkly contrasting beliefs of the prosecuting and defence teams headed by Wm. Jennings Bryan, three-time pesidential candidate and Clarence Darrow, the renowned agnostic.
This book provides a vivid picture of the contrasting bigoted anti-science Fundamentalists who supported the Klu Klux Klan and Prohibition and the numerous talented and educated Northerners exemplified by Clarence Darrow, eloquent in defending John Scopes charged with violating a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in schools. Scopes was set up to test the law by ACLU lawyers. The first part of the book centers on discussion of the influence of Nietzsche, Huxley, Menchen and numerous others on American culture of the 1920s, the eugenics movement and Prohibition.
A small aside: there is brief mention of a boy named Sue. Is this the origin of Johnny Cash’s song of the same name, as he was also in eastern Tennessee?
The result of the trial, in spite of the rhetoric and best efforts of the defence team, a guilty verdict, was a forgone conclusion and a loss for freedom science, and democracy, given that the judge was himself a rabid Fundamentalist and the jury was excluded from hearing the testimony of all of the expert scientists. (The result was later overturned on a technicality by the Tennessee Supreme Court.)
Of numerous witty sayings by Clarence Darrow: « I have never murdered anyone, but on occasion I have read obituary notices with a certain degree of satisfaction. »
There is a very helpful list of persons dramatis at the end that should have been at the start of the book.
This is a very good educational read that is now more than ever relevant given the anti-science environment we still face.
4.0/5.
The New Yorker.
The Passionate Reader 
interesting about a boy named Sue
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