Law, Religion and Science in American History: Edward J. Larson, Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion

This 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning study of the Scopes trial by University of Georgia professor Edward J. Larson is a splendid book quite worthy of the praise it has received. Summer for the Gods is to be recognized, above all, as a beautiful work of history. Meticulously researched and documented, Larson’s study combines an analysis of archival materials not available to previous students of the trial with an engaging narrative to produce a study that is both a scholarly achievement and a text accessible and of interest to wider audiences. Yet, despite the book’s obvious merits as a historical analysis of the Scopes trial, the great achievement of this text is the subtle, even effortless, way it guides the reader into a consideration of issues beyond the courtroom battles that took place over Tennessee’s antievolution law during the summer of 1925.