Summer For The Gods by Edward Larson

The Scopes trial was a defining moment in American history, where a controversial Tennessee anti-evolution statue turned into a nationwide battle between religious fundamentalists and scientific free thinkers. In 1925, a Tennessee teacher, John Scopes, had volunteered to be a constitutional test case against a Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) backed Scopes, seeking to strike down the law as an unconstitutional infringement of civil liberties.
The protagonists in the book, William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow, are both men with agendas that reach far beyond the courtroom where the trial is being held. Bryan is a populist, "The Great Commoner", a man who rose to national prominence (similarly to Barack Obama) with a fiery speech at the 1896 Democratic Convention about the evils of the gold standard, declaring "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold". That speech won him the nomination, and he would lose a closely contested race to William McKinley in the general election. At the time of the trial, however, Bryan is out of politics, having been a three-time loser in the presidential race. Still a national figure, Bryan has taken up a variety of fundamentalist causes, such as Prohibition and anti-Darwinism. His opposite in the trial, Clarence Darrow, is different from him in almost every way. Darrow is "America's leading defense lawyer", an agnostic whose previous case, that of Leopold and Loeb, two wealthy University of Chicago students who were accused of killing a 14-year old boy, had also played out on a national scene. Convinced by Darrow, the students had pleaded guilty, but Darrow, much to the anger of many, managed to avoid the death penalty for his clients, arguing that their actions were the product of the their environment, and thus the defendants could not be executed. Darrow had already announced his retirement when the legal action against Scopes was taken, but offers his services free of charge when he hears that Bryan will argue for the state of Tennessee.
The book seeks to be an alternative to the fictionalized version of the Scopes trial that was presented in the play Inherit The Wind (1955), which was meant more as a parable for the ongoing McCarthy trials than as an accurate historical representation; indeed, the play even used pseudonyms for the actual figures in the trial. Nevertheless, the play was a massive success, and the resulting revivals and film adaptations popularized a skewed version of the actual events. In the play, Darrow is portrayed as an invincible crusader and Bryan as an out-of-touch fool who believes every word in the Bible literally. What Larson does in Summer for the Gods is to present a unbiased, facts-based presentation of the trial, laying out the circumstances and letting the reader draw his/her own conclusions. The book is strongest in the details, exploring every point of the story and letting the narrative speak for itself. The story never feels like Larson is pasting a preconceived notion on; rather, he is simply reviving a debate that has faded as America has progressed.
The book is very well written, but a prospective reader looking to find Inherit The Wind II will be sorely disappointed. Larson is a historian first and foremost, and the story can get a bit dry at times. However, for someone who has previously read and enjoyed non-fiction, I would highly recommend it.