Keeping the Faith

Starred review from September 2, 2024
In this gripping and expansive reexamination of the Scopes Monkey Trial, a lightning-rod debate over what was allowed to be taught in public schools caps a decades-long run of divisiveness, which eroded Americans’ belief in the power of democracy. Historian Wineapple (The Impeachers) depicts the country’s contemporaneous obsession with the 1925 trial—in which a Tennessee school teacher fined for teaching the theory of evolution was defended by a fledgling ACLU—as a culmination of decades of upheaval, violence, and inequity, from the Civil War to WWI. Tracing the lives of the trial’s prosecutor, William Jennings Bryan, the “de facto voice” of Christian fundamentalism in the country by the 1920s, and its defense attorney, Clarence Darrow—a “lion of the bar” already famous for saving bomb-throwing anarchists and murderers from the electric chair—Wineapple shows how both men, over the course of tumultuous lives that mirror the travails of the country, had developed influential but incompatible notions of democracy. Wineapple’s elegant appraisal notably departs from depictions—popularized at the time, especially through the “acerbic” reporting of H.L. Mencken—of the fundamentalists’ side as purely buffoonish (a take actually more in line with Darrow’s own appraisal of the trial as a “tragedy”). With its obvious parallels to today’s battles over public education, and its depiction of a fractious, in-fighting Democratic Party, this historical investigation pulses with urgency.

November 1, 2024

Historian Wineapple (The Impeachers) examines the history of the infamous 1925 Scopes trial, taking listeners from considerations of the social and political climate of the time through the preparation for the trial and the verdict. Wineapple discusses the key players in the "trial of the century," including fundamentalist Christian prosecutor William Jennings Bryan, defense attorney Clarence Darrow, and the ACLU, which organized Tennessee schoolteacher Scopes's defense for teaching the theory of evolution. Gabra Zackman narrates, skillfully altering her voice to help listeners keep the players straight without taking away from the focus on the historical events. While Wineapple's book is rich in detail, her account is somewhat skewed, with the balance of attention going to Bryan's and the Ku Klux Klan's contributions to the explosive atmosphere at the time. Coverage of Darrow is noticeably thinner and less dynamic. VERDICT Even though some listeners may wish for a more proportional account, this expertly narrated audio sheds light on a key trial that continues to be unsettlingly relevant today. Recommended for those who enjoyed Greg Jarrett's The Trial of the Century.--Richard Winters

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