Keeping the Faith God, Democracy, and the Trial That Riveted a Nation

By: Brenda Wineapple

Published by Random House, 2025-09-16

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “Brenda Wineapple’s wonderful account of the Scopes trial sheds light not only on the battles of the past but on the struggles of the present.”—Jon Meacham

“History at its most delicious.”—The New York Times Book Review (front page review, Editors’ Choice)

The dramatic story of the 1925 Scopes trial, which captivated the nation and exposed profound divisions in America that still resonate today—divisions over the meaning of freedom, religion, education, censorship, and civil liberties in a democracy

“Propulsive . . . a terrific story about a pivotal moment in our history.”—Ken Burns

ONE OF THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE’S TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

“No subject possesses the minds of men like religious bigotry and hate, and these fires are being lighted today in America.” So said legendary attorney Clarence Darrow as hundreds of people descended on the sleepy town of Dayton, Tennessee, for the trial of a schoolteacher named John T. Scopes, who was charged with breaking the law by teaching evolution to his biology class in a public school.

Brenda Wineapple, the award-winning author of The Impeachers, explores how and why the Scopes trial quickly seemed a circus-like media sensation, drawing massive crowds and worldwide attention. Darrow, a brilliant and controversial lawyer, said in his electrifying defense of Scopes that people should be free to think, worship, and learn. William Jennings Bryan, three-time Democratic nominee for president, argued for the prosecution that evolution undermined the fundamental, literal truth of the Bible and created a society without morals, meaning, and hope.

In Keeping the Faith, Wineapple takes us into the early years of the twentieth century—years of racism, intolerance, and world war—to illuminate, through this pivotal legal showdown, a seismic period in American history. At its heart, the Scopes trial dramatized conflicts over many of the fundamental values that define America, and that continue to divide Americans today.