"Summer For All the Gods"

Paper Summary:

This paper examines Edward J. Larson's "Summer For All the Gods" , a non-fiction account of the famous Scopes monkey trial. The Scopes trial refers to a turn of the century courtroom battle in American history, when a supposed high school teacher named John Scopes was put on trial for violating a Tennessee state law that prohibited the teaching of Darwinian evolutionary theory in the public schools. The paper evaluates how Larson's account presents an historical, unsentimental version of the Scopes trial which is in direct conversation and contrast with how the trial has entered into popular mythology, as a battle between rationality and irrationality, between justice and injustice.

From the Paper:

"Three central themes drive the Summer for All Gods. First, there is the idea that science is never pure and factual, it is always filtered through politics in the real, lived life of American historical drama. Secondly, Larson must deal with the fact that quite often a historical event, even of recent date can become quickly tainted in the collective American mythological memory as a battle for free speech and justice fought and won, rather than something that continues to be waged in America's present. As a last and third important corollary to the truth versus fiction theme, Larson notes that no courtroom drama ever has one side that is on the side of "truth" purely and simply. It is true that Tennessee's legislature did attempt to prohibit the teaching of evolution in schools. However, this is a practice of ideological management that still takes place today, when states attempt to influence textbook manufactures as to the content of what is included and not included in texts."

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