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OverviewOn a memorable day in human history, February 12, 1809, two babies were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. It was a time of backward-seeming notions, when almost everyone still accepted the biblical account of creation as the literal truth and authoritarianism as the most natural and viable social order. But by the time both men died, the world had changed: ordinary people understood that life on earth was a story of continuous evolution, and the Civil War had proved that a democracy could fight for principles and endure. And with these signal insights much else had changed besides. Together, Darwin and Lincoln had become midwives to the spirit of a new world, a new kind of hope and faith. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Adam GopnikPublisher: Knopf Publishing Group Imprint: Knopf Publishing Group Dimensions: Width: 15.50cm , Height: 2.40cm , Length: 24.10cm Weight: 0.404kg ISBN: 9780307270788ISBN 10: 0307270785 Pages: 211 Publication Date: 27 January 2009 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Unknown Availability: Out of stock Table of ContentsReviews[A]rresting....lively and wide-ranging....[Gopnik's] astute analysis...shows us why these thinkers and writers, who maintained 'a tragic consciousness without robbing it of a hopeful view, ' have so robustly survived to our own time. <br>- Christopher Benfey, The New York Times Book Review <br> entertaining....an introduction that brilliantly encapsulates ....Gopnik draws vividly characterized personal and intellectual portraits of each man....[he] has selected [the material] with a novelist's skill....Gopnik's writing is pungent, inventive and rich. <br>- Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review <br> [A] learned treatise that worships learning....Gopnik offers a meditation on each man's most literary qualities: Lincoln's deceptively simple legalistic language and Darwin's crystalline powers of observation....a succinct, convincing, and moving account of how two men ripped mankind out of its past unreason and thrust it into a more enlightened age. <br>-Gilbert Cruz, Time <br> Gopnik casts fresh and honest light on two figures distorted by years of excessive comment, quotation, and ideological appropriation....[His] thesis is...an ambitious one, and he defends it well....[an] elegant book. <br>- Josh Burek, Christian Science Monitor <br> Adam Gopnik celebrates....the beauty of a perfectly calibrated argument....Gopnik revels in the revolutionary ideas that helped create our 'moral modernity' as he reveals the complex characters who unearthed startling truths about nature, human and otherwise. <br>- Cathleen Medwick, O: The Oprah Magazine <br> elegant, intelligent meditation on skepticism and the making of the liberal mind....intriguing hypothesis-that [Lincoln and Darwin]weren't ever, actually, in natural conflict: The real enemy of religion isn't science, [Gopnik] says, it's history. <br>- David Wallace-Wells, The New York Observer <br> thoughtful meditation on the contemporary meaning of the lives of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln....[Gopnik] offers an eloquent and elegant comparison of two great men, expounding on how they achieved their stature and what their accomplishments mean for us today....a profound discussion of the relationship between faith and science....Gopnik's examination of these two men leads to nothing less than the exploration of what it means to live a meaningful life....Gopnik...distilled knowledge of an enormous set of biographical facts to come to some far-reaching conclusions about what it means to be human....amazing work of scholarship and philosophical thought. <br>- John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News <br> [From] one of our best essayists....[with] overwhelming truths.... Angels and Ages makes a persuasive case that our liberal, bourgeois lives, resting on reason, law, and the primacy of science, rest also on Darwin and Lincoln....it is...powerful [and] emotional...covering breathtaking acreage with trenchant flair. <br>- John Timpane, Philadelphia Inquirer <br> perceptive, very articulate author....intriguing treatise, appealing to a popular audience as the nation and world celebrate the bicentennial of this duo's birth. <br>- Brad Hooper, Booklist (starred review) Author InformationTab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |