The Scopes Monkey Trial: A Headline Court Case (Headline Court Cases) (Library Binding)

by Freya Ottem Hanson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up-Solidly researched titles, written in a lively manner to draw and keep readers' attention. The authors examine the changing times and the clash of ideas behind both of these famous trials. DeVillers describes the financial and personal difficulties that plagued Brown throughout his life as well as his strong faith in the Bible that fueled his radical beliefs. Hanson presents an account of what was billed as the "trial of the century." In 1925, John T. Scopes challenged the Tennessee law against teaching the theory of evolution. Concluding chapters present court decisions since the 1960s dealing with the teaching of evolution in public schools. Each book contains black-and-white photographs and reproductions, discussion questions, and chapter notes. Both of these titles explore important chapters in the development of the United States and introduce young people to legal terminology and procedures.
Patricia Ann Owens, Wabash Valley College, Mt. Carmel, IL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Reviewed with Judy Monroe's The Sacco and Vanzetti Controversial Murder Trial.

Gr. 6-10. Should evolution be taught in schools? Did Sacco and Vanzetti get a fair trial? Part of the Headline Court Cases series, these two books combine details of the courtroom drama with arguments about the crucial social and legal issues that are still relevant today. In the Scopes "monkey" trial much of the excitement came from the clash in the courtroom between two famous lawyers, atheist Clarence Darrow (who defended the teacher Scopes without charge) and William Jennings Bryan. Hanson also relates the evolution/creationism debate to the First Amendment issues raised by the trial, especially the separation of church and state and the right to free speech. Monroe's book is stronger in style, focusing both on the violation of Sacco and Vanzetti's rights and on what are fair and just proceedings in any trial, from arrest to indictment and arraignment. She ends with several discussion questions that will stimulate classroom debate, questions of court proceedings and of guilt and innocence. Both books include full source notes by chapter, a glossary, a chronology, a brief bibliography, and Internet addresses. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Library Binding: 128 pages
• Publisher: Enslow Publishers (July 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 076601388X
• ISBN-13: 978-0766013889
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,207,779 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Scopes monkey trial review, March 22, 2005

By	Brandon Wanstrath "Brandon" (Cincinnati, OH USA) - See all my reviews

In the book The Scopes Monkey Trial, by Freya Ottem Hanson, the trial between John Thomas Scopes and the state of Tennessee is broken down piece by piece. Everyone who had something to do with this trial was included in this piece of writing. Hanson talks about all of the different points of view that were faced when it came to Darwin's theory of evolution and the kind of people that had them. Hanson even talks about how much excitement was brought to the small town of Dayton Tennessee because of the trial and its publicity.

I personally did not like this book. It is a long drawn out piece of writing about a boring trial back in the 1920's. Though the fact that a state would feel that they have a right to outlaw the teaching of a different theory of how humans came to existence, other than the Catholic Church's theory does interest me a little bit. I personally would not recommend this book to anyone who is not studying this subject because the way that the material is presented is just boring and obsolete.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Distinctly second rate, February 23, 2006

By	Karl (England, Great Britain) - See all my reviews

Firstly, I would have given this book just one star, but for the fact that it mentions Richard Milton's work on Darwinism (page 105).

I'm only giving it two stars, firstly because I have to agree with the last reviewer about the quality of the writing in this book. It is, to say the least, tedious and uninspired, not to mention frequently repetitive (though not to any perceivable purpose) which does nothing to convince the reader that the trial was of much importance or interest.

Secondly, though the series in which this book is included is described in the "School Library Journal" as "well researched" - this particular volume certainly doesn't fit that description, including as it does, numerous errors and omissions which build up into a quite obviously "spun" version of history.

For example, Clarence Darrow is presented in a highly partial manner which gives the impression that he completed his law course at the University of Michigan (page 46), though he quit after the first year; we are told that Darrow was "fascinated" by religion (page 46), but not that he is generally acknowledged to have been a religious bigot. And whilst mentioning Darrow's part in the McNamara case (page 48), the author somehow forgets to mention that the bombing perpetrated by the brothers killed some 20 innocent people.
Likewise Darrow's loss of Union patronage after the McNamara case is mentioned, but not the reason - that Darrow was charged with two counts of attempted bribing of a juror, and that although Darrow was freed on both counts (one because of a hung jury), he was barred from ever again practising law in the State of California.

Bryan, likewise, is misrepresented. In particular we are left with the impression that Bryan opposed the teaching of evolutionist ideas, period (page 45), though in fact he made it quite clear that he was content to have evolution on the school curriculum as long as the ideas were taught as a "theory" rather than a "fact". Likewise Darrow's cross-examination of Bryan on day 7 of the trial is quite wrongly referred to as a "debate" (page 83), a strange error for a lawyer (as this author is) to make.

There are plenty more errors (apparently there were only 10 days between July 10th and July 21st inc. in 1925 (page 58)), and selective presentation of the facts (such as the highly edited version of Maynard Metcalf's thoroughly garbled live explanation of the term "evolution" (page 77)).

Most importantly, the author fails to highlight or explain a key issue - both in 1925 and in all subsequent confrontations/discussions/debates of a similar nature - the difference between evolution and Darwinism, though the point was mentioned two or three times in the expert testimony presented at the Scopes Trial. Worse still, the author actually obscures this issue by describing "evolution" (in the glossary, page 121) as:

"A theory written in 1859 in which Chares Darwin claimed that all life evolved from a single organism."

(So "evolution" is "a theory" which claimed that life "evolved". Oops!)

This is not to say that the book is rubbish and totally inaccurate. It isn't. But there are just too many flaws for it to be useful to anyone who doesn't already have a good working knowledge of the case - but then such a person would have no need of this book in the first place.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The best juvenile history of the celebrated "Monkey" Trial, April 15, 2002

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

The Scopes "Monkey" Trial did not appear in American History textbooks until after the play "Inherit the Wind" opened on Broadway. In fact, several textbooks used the fictional account of the trial as the basis for what appeared as history. One of the chief virtues of this book by Freya Ottem Hanson is that she puts the celebrated "duel in the shade" where Clarence Darrow questioned William Jennings Bryan about the Bible and evolution in perspective.

Hanson only spends a couple of pages on the cross-examination, but she does focus on the point where Bryan admitted that the days in Genesis were not necessarily 24-hour days. This, of course, is the focal point of the play's version of what happened. However, an examination of the trial transcript shows that Bryan, knowing where Darrow was going with his questions, was actually attempting to pre-empt the line of attack; he was not force to admit the point, but actually volunteered the point. After all, according to Genesis the sun, moon, and stars were not created until the fourth day. So, while Hanson does not let the cross-examination dominate the story of the trial, she does buy into the importance of that particular declaration. So while "The Scopes Monkey Trial" focuses more on what happened in the court that most juvenile accounts, it still falls short of adequately capturing the legal arguments of the trial.

Hanson provides a lot of information about the trial, including details about all of the various witnesses for the prosecution and the defense. I was also pleased to see that she pays more attention to Dudley Field Malone's speech in defense of academic freedom than you will find in Edward J. Larson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the trial "Summer of the Gods." However, for a book that is focusing on the trial as a court case, I was surprised that it does not given young readers a clear sense of the stages of the trial. The cross-examination of the third and final stage of the trial was intended to embarrass Bryan; the decision had already been made to ask the jury to find Scopes guilty. Darrow would even refrain from giving a closing argument just to prevent Bryan from giving the "Back to God" speech he had been working on for weeks.

Malone's speech represents the key position of the defense, which was to reconcile evolution and Genesis. This is important because it was this rhetoric of reconciliation that was intended to be their position and not the ridicule of Bryan that came to characterize their position. Furthermore, Hanson ignores the first stage of the trial, where defense attorney Arthur Garfield Hays argued the Butler Act was unconstitutional. Hays is mentioned in the book (but not in the index) so young reader do not learn about how he drafted up a law patterned on the Butler Act to teach that the Earth was the center of the universe, just like it says in the Bible.

Another strength of the book is how Hanson covers the legal cases involving evolution and creationism from the Epperson v. Arkansas case that finally saw the anti-evolution laws declared unconstitutional to more recent court actions. The book is illustrated with black & white photographs, including several which I have never seen before (and since I did my dissertation on the Scopes trial I had some reason to believe I had seen pretty much everything out there). In terms of primary and secondary sources, Hanson certainly availed herself of a better selection than any other author of a juvenile account of the trial....