Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Few issues besides evolution have so strained Americans' professed tradition, of tolerance. Few historians besides Pulitzer Prize winner Edward J. Larson have so perceptively chronicled evolution's divisive presence on the American scene. This slim volume reviews the key aspects, current and historical, of the creation-evolution debate in the United States." "By looking at the changing motivations and backgrounds of the stakeholders in the creation-evolution debate - clergy, scientists, lawmakers, educators, and others - Larson promotes a more nuanced view of the question than most of us have. This is no incidental benefit for Larson's readers; it is one of the book's driving purposes. If we cede the debate to those who would frame it simplistically rather than embrace its complexity, warns Larson, we will not advance beyond the naive regard of organized religion as the enemy of intellectual freedom or the equally myopic myth of the scientist as courageous loner willing to die for the truth."--Jacket.

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