Keeping the Faith - by Brenda Wineapple

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - "Brenda Wineapple's wonderful account of the Scopes trial sheds light not only on the battles of the past but on the struggles of the present."--Jon Meacham

"History at its most delicious."--The New York Times Book Review (front page review, Editors' Choice)

The dramatic story of the 1925 Scopes trial, which captivated the nation and exposed profound divisions in America that still resonate today--divisions over the meaning of freedom, religion, education, censorship, and civil liberties in a democracy

"Propulsive . . . a terrific story about a pivotal moment in our history."--Ken Burns

ONE OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE'S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR - A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"No subject possesses the minds of men like religious bigotry and hate, and these fires are being lighted today in America." So said legendary attorney Clarence Darrow as hundreds of people descended on the sleepy town of Dayton, Tennessee, for the trial of a schoolteacher named John T. Scopes, who was charged with breaking the law by teaching evolution to his biology class in a public school.

Brenda Wineapple, the award-winning author of The Impeachers, explores how and why the Scopes trial quickly seemed a circus-like media sensation, drawing massive crowds and worldwide attention. Darrow, a brilliant and controversial lawyer, said in his electrifying defense of Scopes that people should be free to think, worship, and learn. William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic nominee for president, argued for the prosecution that evolution undermined the fundamental, literal truth of the Bible and created a society without morals, meaning, and hope.

In Keeping the Faith, Wineapple takes us into the early years of the twentieth century--years of racism, intolerance, and world war--to illuminate, through this pivotal legal showdown, a seismic period in American history. At its heart, the Scopes trial dramatized conflicts over many of the fundamental values that define America, and that continue to divide Americans today.

Review Quotes

"Captivating . . . The struggles of yesteryear between reason and ignorance do not merely illuminate those of the present. They are the same struggle. This is a story from a past that isn't even past."--The New York Times (front page review, Editors' Choice)

"A briskly told chronicle by Brenda Wineapple, who has a knack for producing popular histories with contemporary resonance."--The New Yorker

"If you're eager for answers to the presidential election, start here. If you're merely looking for gripping history . . . ditto."--Chicago Tribune

"Wineapple's book provides a vivid account of how fear has always acted on our national consciousness--and a way of coming to terms with our own fractured political present. . . . Outstanding."--The Atlantic

"Lively . . . Brenda Wineapple brings to life one of the most inflamed chapters in the history of America's culture wars."--New York Review of Books

"Brilliant . . . Keeping the Faith could not have been published at a more appropriate time."--Bookreporter

"No one has written a richer or more dramatic narrative of the [Scopes] trial or its leading combatants than Wineapple has in Keeping the Faith."--The Nation

"[A] welcome refresh . . . Wineapple writes her account with energy and drama. . . . By doing so, she reveals how much was at stake in the trial."--Science

"[A] gripping and expansive reexamination of the Scopes Monkey Trial . . ."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The notorious 'monkey trial' in expert hands."--Kirkus Reviews

"A brilliant account of the Scopes trial, as fair-minded as it is well written, as compelling as it is richly detailed--and as relevant to today's America as it is faithful to the America of a century ago."--Geoffrey C. Ward, author of A First-Class Temperament

"Brenda Wineapple's wonderful account sheds light not only on the battles of the past but on the unfolding struggles of the urgent present."--Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of And There Was Light

"In Brenda Wineapple's hands, a century-old event opens a window on our country today, [and] the impulse to label certain ideas as too dangerous to be taught."--Linda Greenhouse, Pulitzer Prize-winning legal journalist

"[Wineapple] recounts a battle about science, religion, truth, and freedom of thought that seems much closer than a century ago."--Drew Gilpin Faust, New York Times bestselling author of Necessary Trouble

"In this propulsive account of the 1925 Scopes trial, Wineapple exposes fault lines in America that continue to haunt us today."--Ken Burns

"A master of historical narrative, [Wineapple] has given us a bracing and illuminating tale for our own troubled times."--Evan Thomas, New York Times bestselling author of Road to Surrender

"Much of what we think we know about the famous Scopes trial, we don't. Our misconceptions need correction--and there is no better corrector than Brenda Wineapple."--Garry Wills, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg

About the Author

Brenda Wineapple's books include The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation, selected by a New York Times critic as one of the ten best nonfiction works of 2019; Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compromise, 1848-1877, a New York Times Notable Book; and White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. A recipient of a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship, and a Pushcart Prize, among other honors, Wineapple has also received three National Endowment Fellowships, including its Public Scholars Award. She writes regularly for such publications as The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Book Review, and The Wall Street Journal. In 2023, she was selected a Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.