Kenan Malik
The Unity of Man
Darwin’s Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins
By Adrian Desmond and James Moore
Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 484pp £25
Perhaps the most celebrated collision between scientific rationality and anti-racist sensibility came in a Tennessee courtroom in 1925, when the teacher John Scopes was prosecuted for propagating Darwin’s theory of evolution in the classroom. Leading the prosecution was America’s most famous anti-Darwinist, William Jennings Bryan, whose campaigning had persuaded Tennessee to pass a law outlawing the teaching of Darwin’s theory.
Bryan is usually portrayed as an ignorant, Bible-thumping, reactionary buffoon. He was in fact a radical of national renown who three times ran as the Democratic presidential candidate (and three times lost). What shaped his opposition to Darwinism was not his religious literalism but his search for social justice. ‘Darwinian
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm