About this title: In this bicentennial twin portrait of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, Gopnik shows how these two giants altered the way people think about death and time--about the very nature of earthly existence.
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Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2009
Description: Good. Book Club edition. Good clean condition. All pages are clean. Cover/book edges have some wear. Your satisfaction is guaranteed! read more
Description: Good. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
Date Published: 2009-01-27
ISBN-13:9780307270788ISBN:0307270785
Description: NEW. Hardcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780307270788. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780307270788ISBN:0307270785
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: QUERCUS PUBLISHING PLC Country = UNITED KINGDOM
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781847249296ISBN:1847249299
Description: BRAND NEW HARDBACK. 224 pages. On february 12th, 1809, two men were born an ocean apart: abraham lincoln in a one-room kentucky log cabin; charles darwin on an english country estate. each would see his life's work transform mankind's understanding of itself. this book shows how these two giants, who never met, changed the way we think about the very nature of existence. (Hardback) read more
Edition: First U.S. Edition, 1st Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York, New York
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780307270788ISBN:0307270785
Description: As New in As New jacket. Signed by Author DJ with slight rub to head of spine panel, otherwise book and DJ Fine. read more
Edition: First edition. fourth printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780307270788ISBN:0307270785
Description: New in new dust jacket. Signed by author. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 211 p. Audience: General/trade. SIGNED BY AUTHOR on title page. First Edition/Fourth Printing. New book, opened only for signing. Brodart protected. Ships in a box. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, New York City, NY
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780307270788ISBN:0307270785
Description: Signed by Author. Hardcover. First Edition. First Printing. 211 pages. As New in As New Dust Jacket. The author's book-length account on subjects. One of the finest literary and intellectual achievements of our time, it is the single best book published in 2009 to celebrate the Bi-Centennial of both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Presents Adam Gopnik's single most brilliant, riveting, and ... read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Knopf
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781615233717ISBN:1615233717
Description: Good. Cover and pages may have some wear or writing. Binding is tight. We ship daily Monday-Friday. Delivery Confirmation included on all domestic orders. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Random House Inc
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780307270788ISBN:0307270785
Description: New. In this bicentennial twin portrait of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin, Gopnik shows how these two giants altered the way people think about death and time--about the very nature of earthly existence. read more
Binding: Hardback
Publisher: Quercus Publishing Plc
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9781847249296ISBN:1847249299
Description: New. On February 12th, 1809, two men were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. Each would see his life's work transform mankind's understanding of itself. This book shows how th... read more
"Only half way through this erudite and informative book and I want more. Gopnik's range in this short book is very wide. I think I have learned more about Darwin in these few pages anywhere else.
Gopnik's emphasis on the written and spoken language of his Lincoln and Darwin and the strategies they employed is fascinating. His discussion of their personal lives is illuminating.
He demonstrates that he has read widely, and he writes well. And from time to time, I find myself chuckling out loud,"
"I heard Gopnik talk on campus recently. The topic was Darwin. Having recently visited Down House, I was pleased with the currency and depth of his presentation. The point was... well..nevermind.... different from this book so I will try to keep on track. What do Darwin and Lincoln have in common? One was born in poverty in Kentucky but rose in politics because of his outgoing nature. The other born to a wealthy family in England and was a bit reticent to press his points in public. However, as my friend Dennis immediately knew... they were born the same day! They both managed to make a transformation in society that had been difficult. The concepts that species change and that slavery must be abolished was well known, yet not entirely clear to everyone. It took clear thinkers who communicated well to effect the changes. Gopnik made the case that Darwin was persistent about amassing facts, assessing apparent contradictions and communicating the ideas in a fashion that was readily understandable. Origin of the Species was written for everyone to read. Cool. --- With respect to Lincoln, I had not appreciated, until Gopnik pointed it out, the extent to which Lincoln framed his thoughts,ideas and arguments like a lawyer. Only recently did we come to have a lawyer in the family... and I am coming to grips with that. But I recognized the truth in Gopnik's argument that Lincoln wrote, spoke and communicated with people like a lawyer. He thought in terms of contracts. --- Another point I found interesting was Gopnik's take on Lincoln's views of slavery and blacks. He makes it clear that Lincoln was always working toward the abolition of slavery. His points were interesting and juxtaposed with some of the modern suggestions otherwise. Gopnik is a writer. He chooses a topic, researches it then goes on to something else. His previous book was about Paris and his next book is about..... something else.... But he writes very well. In the end.... I still am not sure there is any justification for joining Darwin and Lincoln in a common book. He did treat them separately and did not write and effective conclusion discussing their similarities. Clearly, he found the two men interesting, as do many of us, and decided to write about them at the same time. So.. in essence... what the two men have most in common is that they are two of the most captivating people of the 1800s...albeit in different fields. I found myself re-reading many of the sentences because they were... well written but so dense. The book took me longer to read than I expected because I would read sections then put it down to reflect on them. --- I quite liked it. But.... I only gave the book 3 stars because often, in my opinion, he spent an inordinate amount of time on what I considered minor points. I recommend it. I am now reading the book on Paris. (That one is quite different... personal experiences from living in Paris with their young son.)"
"An absolute splendid job of getting to the vision of both of these men and their enormous and continuing impact on both the world and the United States in particular. ras
On 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."
"Gopnik's thesis, that Lincoln and Darwin consecrated the two pillars of modernity: democracy and science, is perilously short-sighted.
Abraham Lincoln was very clear on slavery: he would defend it for the sake of the Union. He pushed the Corwin Amendment, a proposed constitutional change forbidding any future attempts to "abolish or interfere" with slavery. The proposal was ignored by the South, who saw secession as constitutional self-determination against an increasingly autocratic central government, specifically the corporatism championed by the newly-created Republican Party. Lincoln then instigated and oversaw a war that killed 620,000 people, including thousands of women and children in the South, and left unspeakable destruction upon a region that would not recover for over a century. Why? Slavery was ended peacefully in almost every other part of the world. And slavery was not the stated purpose of the war.
Lincoln held a once voluntary union together by ruthless violence (in both the South and the North), trampling rights which had been achieved through republican democracy while setting a precedent later admired by 20th Century dictators. Ironically many credit the bitter legacy of the war for the racial animosity that persisted in the South, which enjoys better race relations today than the North, according to most academics.
Charles Darwin possessed an unparalleled ability of observation and communication. His contribution to science defines conventional understanding. But he was not the first to study the natural world nor is his theory infallible. And it is a mistake to conflate his method or theory with secularism. Sociologist Rodney Stark has detailed the advent of science, which evolved from the theological foundations of the Christian faith. Unlike its Western cousins, Judaism and Islam, Christianity embraced orthopraxy over orthodoxy. This radically shifted human thought from blind acceptance of dogma to belief rooted in reason. It is Christianity that gave us the university and the accompanying freedom of thought. Great theologians created and developed the rigorous scientific method long before Darwin.
And despite those who claim otherwise, Darwin's theory is silent on how matter came to be or the existence of God. It is relegated to explaining the behavior of the material world--useful knowledge but hardly sufficient to explaining the whole human condition, in any era. C.S. Lewis, who never disputed the value of Darwin's work, wrote extensively on the immutable presence of universal morality and its inability to be explained by natural selection. Likewise Francis Collins, a devoted Darwinian who was instrumental in mapping the human genome, recently explained why materialism is simply inadequate in explaining all of life's mysteries.
Gopnik's thesis is a purely secular one. But life relegated to his horizontal plane is a life guided by principles that are rooted in whim and is forced to derive meaning from the "mystic chords of memory" and the vague promise of future generations. Even the consolation of democracy and science is tenuous in this worldview. In theory these two achievements could be maintained in various contexts--they just never have before. The Founders believed that self-government is unsustainable by a secular society. Professor Stark and others have pondered if science can endure in a post-Christian age. We have already begun to see how postmodernism erodes rational inquiry in the disciplines. Heading further down this road does not lead to enlightenment but to despair."
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