Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life

by Adam Gopnik

"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."

"Searching for the men behind the icons of emancipation and evolution, Adam Gopnik shows us, in this captivating double life, Lincoln and Darwin as they really were: family men and social climbers; ambitious manipulators and courageous adventurers; the living husband, father, son, and student behind each myth. How do we reconcile Lincoln, the supremely good man we know, with the hardened commander who wittingly sent tens of thousands of young soldiers to certain death? Why did the relentlessly rational Darwin delay publishing his "Great Idea" for almost twenty years? How did inconsolable grief at the loss of a beloved child change each man? And what comfort could either find - for himself or for a society now possessed of a sadder, if wiser, understanding of our existence? Such human questions and their answers are the stuff of this book."

Above all, we see Lincoln and Darwin as thinkers and writers - as makers and witnesses of the great change in thought that marks truly modern times: a hundred years after the Enlightenment, the old rule of faith and fear finally yielding to one of reason, argument, and observation not merely as intellectual ideals but as a way of life; the judgment of divinity at last submitting to the verdicts of history and time. Lincoln considering human history, Darwin reflecting on deep time - both reshaped our understanding of what life is and how it attains meaning. And they invented a new language to express that understanding.

Angels and Ages is an original and personal account of the creation of the liberal voice - of the way we live now and the way we talk at home and in public. Showing that literary eloquence is essential to liberal civilization, Adam Gopnik reveals why our heroes should be possessed by the urgency of utterance, obsessed by the need to see for themselves, and endowed with the gift to speak for us all.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Biography, Science, Philosophy, Biography Memoir, Politics

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Adam Gopnik is an American writer and essayist, renowned for his extensive contributions to The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1986. Born in Philadelphia and raised in Montreal, he earned a BA in art history from McGill University and pursued graduate work at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts. Gopnik began his career as the magazine’s art critic before becoming its Paris correspondent in 1995. His dispatches from France were later collected in Paris to the Moon (2000), a bestseller that marked his emergence as a major voice in literary nonfiction.
He is the author of numerous books exploring topics from parenting and urban life to liberalism and food culture, including Through the Children's Gate, The Table Comes First, Angels and Ages, A Thousand Small Sanities, and The Real Work. Gopnik’s children’s fiction includes The King in the Window and The Steps Across the Water. He also delivered the 50th Massey Lectures in 2011, which became the basis for Winter: Five Windows on the Season.
Since 2015, Gopnik has expanded into musical theatre, writing lyrics and libretti for works such as The Most Beautiful Room in New York and the oratorio Sentences. He is a frequent media commentator, with appearances on BBC Radio 4 and Charlie Rose, and has received several National Magazine Awards and a George Polk Award. Gopnik lives in New York with his wife and their two children. He remains an influential cultural commentator known for his wit, insight, and elegant prose.

Reviews

[Peter]

I think I learned as much about Gopnik as I did about Lincoln and Darwin.

Well-summarized on its cover as “A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life,” Angels and Ages takes us rapidly through popular themes in the lives of Lincoln and Darwin, who were born on the same day in 1809. It reinforces much of what we know about them, clarifies some common misunderstandings, resolves a mystery or two, and, throughout, offers compelling reflections on how Lincoln and Darwin shaped the world we live in today.

At the heart of Gopnik’s reflections lie insights into the complexities of Lincoln and Darwin’s reputations and an appreciation for how the two men changed the attitudes of the world. Lincoln, remembered as an empathetic and generous sage, was also a shrewd and calculating politician. Darwin, perceived by many as the purveyor of a cold and merciless vision of nature’s order, was a deeply sensitive man and an eloquent writer. And both of them, through their words and actions, presented to the world a new kind of liberal thought.

A collection of essays, Angels and Ages walks us through these ideas not only to illuminate the personal and professional lives of the two great thinkers, but also to try to draw larger meaning from them. How is the world after Darwin and Lincoln different than it was before them? How did emancipation and evolution shift the way we perceive ourselves? What larger meaning can we draw for ourselves from their experiences? It is in his explorations into these questions that Gopnik enters as a third subject of this book—and serves as a contemporary example of the kind of thinking and analysis that Lincoln and Darwin invited.

Reading Angels and Ages, one can’t help but notice these interjections—Gopnik is so present, in fact, that reading this is like building a friendship with him; we notice his idiosyncrasies, we recognize the recurring themes in his thought, and we adjust our own reading for the sake of the conversation. Openness to this will determine whether readers enjoy the book.

Give it a chance, and we find that Gopnik’s lively intellect darts from idea to idea in a voice inclined to rhetorical flourishes and lengthy sentences full of sub-clauses. He does this, it seems, to include every last reflection, idea, nuance, and comparison. Some people will call it enriching; others will call it rambling. Either way, it reveals measured and thought-provoking observations about how the lives of two men from two centuries ago shaped not just the sciences and politics of our time, but also the very way we think in a modern world.

Do I recommend it? Yes. It is short and full of stuff.
Would I teach it? Not in its entirety, but there are sections I might excerpt, including a few terrific pages about reconciling the arts and the sciences.
Lasting impressions: You have to like Gopnik’s style to really enjoy this book—he can repeat himself, both in content and form—but it is worth the adjustment if you’re not initially drawn to it, for the text really is full of rich analysis and interesting trivia from the lives of Darwin and Lincoln. And, Gopnik has a facility for drawing themes out of their lives and using them to illuminate our own.

[micah · Rating 2 out of 5]

If constructions like this make sense to you

Art is "experience & observation" in the sense, one gathers, that it can record behavior without supplying explanation--we don't need to know what causes Hamlet to find him interesting.

then dig in, he's got hundreds. If you're sitting there thinking, well I don't know, there might be some merit in that, here's another representative pearl, less high-handed but just as limp:

A life without Christmas would be a life without stars.

[Audrey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Are you an Abraham Lincoln fan? How about Charles Darwin? Are you an agnostic or, horrors, an atheist?
If so, this is the slim, entertaining volume for you. Adam Gopnik has combined two of his New Yorker articles to create an homage to modern rational thought. Gopnik's focus on Darwin and Lincoln's writing styles allows him to drill down through the mountains of information available on both men and to present apt illustrations of both men's canniness and deep thought. The book's well-considered title winds up being the center post of the author's theory that modern humans can live in a world without the consoling existence of a Supreme Being by keeping our focus simultaneously on the great sweep of time as illustrated by Darwin's over-arching theory and Lincoln's commitment to history, and on the minutia of both the natural world and the slow incremental pace of the law's progress. My own clumsy constructions should not put you off; Gopnik's writing is clear, accessible and entertaining.

[Rubberboots · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF - Once in a while I enjoy reading a good book on any historical topic, and was looking forward to reading this one about Darwin and Lincoln. 50 pages in, the only thing that is evident is that the author is narcissistic and only wants to showcase his writing skills. The only nice tidbit of info I learned is that Lincoln and Darwin were both born on the same day (Feb 12, 1809) which is pretty amazing considering their influence on society. Back to the book, it's garbage, point final. You're better off reading wikipedia.

[Särah Nour · Rating 4 out of 5]

It turns out that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin have much more in common than a shared birthday. New Yorker journalist Adam Gopnik proves this with Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln and Modern Life, a book of great insight and educative value, and an inside look into the human element beyond the history books.

Angels and Ages is a collection of six essays chronicling the two men’s lives from their humble beginnings to their own ushering in of new eras with their radical ideas of democracy and evolution. This is a unique dual biography in that it addresses both facts and misconceptions; acknowledges differences yet draws parallels between the two; and reconciles their social images with their true characters: the sons, the husbands and the fathers behind the textbook knowledge the general public has.

Lincoln, born to a time of slavery and authoritarianism, is portrayed as a shrewd politician, both idealistic and pragmatic, with strong convictions and a clear vision. Meanwhile, Darwin, who inhabited a world in which the Biblical account of creation was accepted as unquestionable truth, is portrayed as a modest, doting family man and inquisitive scientist torn between his theories and his religious beliefs. Despite their differences, both men endured difficult marriages and the loss of a child (Darwin his daughter, Lincoln his son), experiences that influenced their drive to climb the social ladder and make themselves seen and heard.

Gopnik is a skillful and at times poetic wordsmith. As he addresses the historical controversy over whether Lincoln’s secretary claimed, after his death, “Now he belongs to the ages” or “to the angels,” he begs the question of whether we live in a secular or superstitious world. He provides a striking visual of time spent at the beach, surrounded by seagulls, reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, and questions whether the book retains the impact it had back it in its day; whether the reader on the beach is gazing at seagulls in a new light.

Angels and Ages entertains with Gopnik’s wit and eloquence as well as his keen observations and analysis. As the reader gets to know Lincoln and Darwin as characters, they become more meaningful as icons, and if you’re not an admirer of either man, chances are this book will make you one.

[Bandit · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested primarily in the first two topics, two fascinating and eminent figures, for the purposes of this book united by their shared year of birth and their undeniable historical significance. For the purposes of concise biographical sketches, this book served its purpose, however this wasn't a biographical work so much as it was a philosophical one. Darwin and Lincoln's importance of contributions to their time and history in general analyzed through a lens of a critical modern thinker. I'm interested in philosophy, but this particular book didn't really grab me, in fact I found it quite plodding, particularly for such a slender volume. It wasn't tedious or unintelligent, on the contrary quite erudite, it just wasn't particularly stimulating and occasionally too repetitive. I'm completely willing to admit this might have been a matter of personal taste, I tend to prefer nonfiction to be somewhat more exciting, but I did learn a good amount, so ultimately it served its purpose, just took a while to get there.

[Rosemarie Donzanti · Rating 3 out of 5]

On February 12 1809, two men who would change history were born. Adam Gopnik, a writer for The New Yorker compares and contrasts the lives, philosophies, struggles and triumphs of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. What started out as two separate articles were merged and tweaked and became this 200th birthday tribute to both men. While I found the in-depth perspective on each highly insightful and fascinating, I struggled through parts that just didn’t flow as a combined story. Well Happy Birthday guys and thanks for the risks you took for the significant contributions you made.

“Writing well isn't just a question of winsome expression, but of having found something big and true to say and having found the right words to say it in, of having seen something large and having found the right words to say it small, small enough to enter an individual mind so that the strong ideas of what the words are saying sound like sweet reason.”
-Adam Gopnik - Angels and Ages

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a joy, and I thoroughly recommend it for any history nerd looking for some light yet thoughtful summer reading. Angels and Ages will satisfy your intellectual thirst without giving you a headache (with its density) or a backache (with its, um, density?), and that's our version of Fifty Shades of Grey, right?

Gopnik is a delightfully erudite writer who at some point noticed that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on exactly the same day, and decided that was a good enough reason to write a book about both of them. While he pushes his rather random hook a bit far -- the underlying case he tries to make is that the ways in which Lincoln and Darwin changed the world are ideologically and generationally connected, and that their lives were in some ways mirrors of one another (which therefore justifies the notion of writing a book about both of them together based solely on their shared birthday) -- we can forgive him for pushing his point given the fantastically crisp and eloquent several essays on the two men that he delivers.

Angels and Ages turns out to be, on a macro level, a rumination on the Western world's turn towards Liberalism (capital L) after the Enlightenment, and, on a micro level, fascinatingly, a book about diction, word-choice, and writing style. Specifically, the dictions, word-choices, and writing styles of the two historical giants that he's treating. Beneath Gopnik's fundamental points about why Lincoln and Darwin were able to change the world in the ways they did runs a fantastically brilliant exploration of what it means to be a good writer, and the almost unspoken theory that neither men would've accomplished what they accomplished had they not had such a poetic command of the English language. Lincoln was a war leader, and Darwin a scientist (or "naturalist", as he was called), and neither would first and foremost be thought of as a writer. But to Gopnik that's not only what they were, it's the reason they were able to do what they did. Their other talents were only able to move mountains thanks to their abilities to put pen to paper in such a way that dazzled, and convinced, the reader (in the case of Darwin) and the listener (in the case of Lincoln). It's not the conclusion I expected out of this little book when I picked it up, but he sold me on it; everything else was gravy.

I'm witholding five stars only because at 200 pages (small pages at that, with largish font), it really is a slight book, good for a weekend's read on the beach, but not quite substantial enough to stand with the greats.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adam Gopnik's "Angels and Ages" draws its title from conflicting reports on the impromptu eulogy spoken by the grief-stricken Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln's secretary of war, when the grievously wounded president was pronounced dead in 1865.

To Gopnik, the key question is: did Stanton say "now he belongs to the ages," as he is quoted by some historical sources, or did he say "now he belongs to the angels," a version favored by others.

This question forms the focus of Gopnik's inquiry in "Angels and Ages:" the shifting view, in the European nations, at least, from a belief that the universe was the creation of an omnipotent God who controlled its every aspect personally, to a belief in a universe that was completely mechanical, operating without connection to any sort of underlying intelligence on the basis of minute accidental changes over millennia -- some successful and some not.

Lincoln, whose oratory Gopnik says, is centered in his study and practice of law with its attendant structure and logic, represents one type of truly modern thinker on the cutting edge of this emerging world view. Darwin, whose theory of natural selection and evolution draws heavily on the empirical tradition of direct and careful observation, represents a second but closely related variety of modern thinker.

Gopkin has done a public service by illuminating numerous parallels between Lincoln and Charles Darwin -- their strong love of family, their reactions to the death of particularly children and their similar responses to seminal social questions of the day. While the two men lived in different countries and followed different paths, each had a profound impact on the modern world, and Gopkin does a good job of explaining how their thinking helped to create the world we live in today.

The book is loaded with epigrammatic statements from both men. For example, to illustrate Darwin's conviction that the human imagination was as essential an element in scientific inquiry as empiricism and the experimental testing of hypotheses, Gopkin quote the naturalist's statement, "I am a firm believer that without speculation, there is no good and original observation.

The measure of how well Gopkin does his job is the fact that after I had finished "Ages and Angels," I wanted to read more about Lincoln and the time he lived in, and that I not only looked forward to reading Origin of Species and Descent of Man, but even Darwin's late-career study of the lowly earthworm.

[Graychin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Once upon a time in a freshman college course our professor asked us to name the three most influential people of the twentieth century. It was a trick question, because two of them died before 1900, but the three he wanted were Darwin, Marx and Freud. In an early chapter of Angels and Ages, Adam Gopnik references the same triumvirate but suggests a revision is needed for the twenty-first century. Darwin stays, but Marx and Freud get voted off the island, then Gopnik adds Lincoln.

Darwin and Lincoln. The ostensible premise of Gopnik’s book – an abbreviated dual biography – is that “literary eloquence is essential to liberal civilization.” Darwin he presents as exemplar of the spirit of liberal scientific inquiry, Lincoln of the spirit of liberal (in the broad sense of the term) statecraft. More than what they had to say, it was their particular way of saying it that assured the victory of their causes and laid a foundation for modernity.

It’s a stretch, perhaps. Lincoln, in his oratory, is popularly acclaimed for a certain literary or quasi-literary eloquence, and we can imagine that his political victories might have been harder won without the solemn periods and flourishes. But Darwin, I think, is a different story. Selections from his letters – often witty and acerbic – suggest certain gifts. But the particular kind of eloquence displayed in his more famous work is – at least to my ear – hardly “literary.” On the Origin of Species is precise and considered, but not often read for its poetry.

The fact is that Gopnik never really argues for his own thesis. He only states it, and then seems to forget it. Taken on their own, the biographical chapters on Lincoln and Darwin are enjoyable enough, but the synthesis is weak. Apart from the fact that, in certain spheres, both his subjects exert considerable posthumous influence, what exactly unites them? Is there any one thing that we specially owe to Darwin and Lincoln together? Not really.

Gopnik could possibly have given us a diverting New Yorker article, but he gives us an awkward book instead. There’s too much strain in his comparisons, too much rhetorical blurring of his subjects’ radically divergent lives and concerns in order to present them as twinned souls. In the end, you get the feeling that if Lincoln and Darwin had not, by chance, been born on the same day, the idea of pairing them like this would never have occurred to Gopnik, nor to anyone else.

[Audacia Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw Adam Gopnik speak about Darwin and the Evolution of Human Goodness at the 92nd Street Y a few weeks ago, and I was impressed by his sense of humor and his affection for Darwin, so I picked up Angels and Ages.

His affection for both Darwin and Lincoln - not just as public figures and cornerstones of modernity, but as men - is at the core of this book. The book is basically a love letter to these two important men, but it's also thinky enough to be something more than a pure fanboy piece of prose.

I especially appreciation the work on Darwin and Lincoln as family men, and the stuff about both men's relationships with religion is really intriguing. Both men struggled with religion and its impact on their professional lives; both were non-believers who had family members who were avid believers - Gopnik does a great job of teasing this out.

Though the chapters bounce back and forth between Darwin and Lincoln, I felt like there was a bit more Darwin in the book, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Gopnik is a good and accessible writer - I keep laughing at the images he conjures of Darwin's kids assisting him with his worm experiments.

[Fred]

This is two for two on Adam Gopnik's books for me. Having started this one so close on the heels of Paris to the Moon, I see now that it's not just the subject that's presenting a problem. In general, I find Lincoln and Darwin far more interesting subjects than I do Paris, but author's style at times stands between his ideas and his reader (this reader, anyway). Without being especially ornate or flowery, Gopnik still managed to construct sentences that elude ready understanding, and I can't understand why. His points are not so difficult or subtle as to require that ponderous style. I admit that they are interesting, but they don't quite rise to the level of compelling.

[Steve Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Learned in the best sense, without being pedantic, this slip of a book heralds Lincoln and Darwin as agents of modernity. For some reason, the description of Darwin, about whom I know very little, stayed with me, while the description of Lincoln, about whom I know more, was less memorable. Even now, a few days after I read the book, i could easily sum up Darwin's importance as a destroyer of the old "vertical" society, Lincoln less so. But nicely, even elegantly written, and the bibliography alone is worth the price of admission for those wishing to delve further.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

A celebration of rational humanism, through biographical sketches and close readings of Lincoln and Darwin. The biggest problem is that it's also a celebration of the bourgeoisie as the well-spring of human advancement, with its secluded gardens and domestic bliss.

Also note, the introduction is a poor reflection of the quality of the core essays in the book. I'm very glad I didn't put it down, but honestly I was tempted to.

[David Rubin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a series of observations on the lives of Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin who happened to be born on the same date. While Adam Gopnik's prose can be engaging and his observations at times interesting, as a whole I think the book is unsatisfying. There are better biographies of the two and most provide better insights into the respective characters. An editor should have interceded and removed much of the redundant material.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

ultimately good. some good wisdom but a little thick at times. definitely refill the coffee before diving back in if you're not keen on thought-provoking statements. thorough and well researched without a doubt.

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.4

I was hoping for more direct comparisons of these two men. Maybe there were more, but they were so buried in words that I missed it. The book begins with two chapters, one about Lincoln and one about Darwin, with both chapters focusing on the mens' communication styles; interesting, but somewhat repetitious. By the end of the book, Gopnik seemed to have more to say about Darwin than about Lincoln. Maybe not, but that's my impression.

Here are some concise comparative statements that I'll want to reread sometime:
If one word could sum up Lincoln's character, it would be 'shrewd,' if one word, Darwin's, it would be 'sensitive.' Lincoln grasped instantly people's capacities, their intentions, their weak points and their strengths. Darwin was a tentative judge of people, but he was acutely aware of their moods and emotions, and things that other people just passed right over hit him hard.
True?

Now here's an example of why I'm not enjoying this read.
p 134 A true fault line in modern consciousness exists in those years, and can be found beneath Lincoln's deathbed, as it can be found beneath so many other beds.
Not exactly clear writing. If people want their books to be read, they should write to invite readers, not stump them.

Then, one page later, there's this pithy idea:
At Gettysburg, the self-sacrificing soldiers are [viewed as] martyrs not to religion but to a new birth of freedom. For the first time, fewer people found comfort in the promise of eternal life; more found it in the idea of a new world worth making.

And on page 153: In a letter, Lincoln admitted, "Some of Shakespeare's plays I have never read; while others I have gone over perhaps as frequently as any unprofessional reader. Among the latter are 'Lear,' 'Richard III,' 'Henry VIII,' 'Hamlet,' and especially 'Macbeth.' I think nothing equals Macbeth."

Darwin apparently new Kingsley fairly well!
p 167: One copy of 'The Origin' that Darwin inscribed and signed before publication was for Charles Kingsley, ... Kingsley, a very odd man ... wrote his somewhat Joycean children’s classic, 'The Water-Babies', in the light of both Darwinian theory and the Bible. ... Darwin himself appears in 'The Water-Babies', a humble and unworldly figure, head in the clouds, pockets filled with fish and fossils the sort who couldn’t harm a fly, or a fair-minded theologian.

And here's one of the most readable summarizing statements:
p. 206 Lincoln and Darwin were not otherwise great figures who happened to be great writers; we pick them out among their contemporaries because they wrote so well, and they wrote so well because they saw so clearly, and they saw so clearly because they cleared their minds of the cant of their day and used the craft of legal and scientific reasoning to let themselves start fresh. Just as Lincoln used the narrow language of the law to arrive at a voice of liberalism still resonant and convincing today, Darwin used the still more narrow language of natural observation—of close amateur looking to change our ideas of life and time and history.

p. 209: Darwin and Lincoln were makers and witness of the great change that, for good or ill, marks modern times: the slow emergence from a culture of faith and fear to one of observation and argument, and from a belief in the judgment of a divinity to a belief in the verdicts of history and time.

And maybe my biggest insight from this book:
p. 224: Science lets us think big, but we still feel small. No cosmologist has ever felt more serenely about his tenure case by contemplating the vastness of the universe. We get the big picture, but it’s not where we live.
And I'll add this example: We know the world is round, but from our personal, daily experiences, it’s flat.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

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.

[Jim Mcmanus · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried. God knows I tried. I like Gopnik's articles and essays that have appeared in The New Yorker. In fact he has one in the current issue. That's what's so vexing about this.
One of the reviewers on this site said of the book that it was obvious that Gopnik has a tremendous amount of admiration for Lincoln and Darwin, something like that. It got me thinking. Remember what it's like when you fall in love, or fall in like? You're two feet off the ground, you don't sleep for days, you write poetry that you just know is the best stuff that's ever been written and, most germane to this review, you talk about your Other in a language that is a combination of mush, drivel, earnestness, conviction, and amnesia. And did I leave out non-stop?
So, Gopnik clearly is in love. How else explain the following: "They shared logic as a form of eloquence, argument as a style of virtue, close reasoning as a form of uplift. Each...arrived at a new ideal of liberal eloquence. This was a revolution in rhetoric that we still live with, and within, rhetoric remade by a suspicion of rhetoric." WHAT?
I could go on. But I'm too tired. Suffice it to say that some 10 pages or so of this book appeared a while back in, yes, The New Yorker. I read the article. All of it. But a book? Too much, no good.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

An original, insightful, brilliant anaysis of both Lincoln's and Darwin's writiings, and how they persuade. By a queer quirk of history, both men were born on the same day and year. Both changed forever our thinking. Lincoln defined the concept of nationhood, not only in the US, but the world. I attended a conference at Oxford University on Lincoln's Global Influence in 2009. Darwin, of course, changed our views of humanity and our place in the world.

Gopnik, an excellent analyst of language is especially insightful about the influence of the King James Bible, Shakespeare, and the language of the law on Lincoln's speeches. He convincingly shows that those speeches were unusual for his time, unlike the rhetoric of other 19rh century orators. He also shows how Darwin chose to write as a humanist, not as a scientist. He takes us into his mind. He doesn't lecture.

If you are at all interested in how language can be an art form, read this --or at least the chapters on Lincoln, which far outstrip previous analyses of Lincoln's addresses.

[Connor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Adam Gopnik's writing: I read his essays in The New Yorker with joy, and I've read bits of his other works. This is the first book of his I've finished, and it's really a collection of essays, alternating between Darwin and Lincoln's lives. It's a fascinating portrayal of Lincoln, and I really appreciate how he wrote analysed the arch from farmboy to lawyer as Lincoln's life progressed, and broke down the words of the speeches Lincoln gave.
I've never read a bio of Darwin, and hadn't realised how invested in his family he was. We learn how he almost gave up researching evolution to placate his religious wife, how his favourite daughter died young. An often tragic life. But Gopnik also analyses Darwin's rhetorical abilities, and the argumentative style that is also my favourite: replacing your opponent's poor arguments with better ones, and then beating them anyway. I hadn't realised that Darwin was the emperor of that style!

A thoroughly enjoyable read, beautiful writing.

[Colleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

With such interesting subject matter as Lincoln and Darwin, this should have been a home run. I made it about 2/3 through before I was bored out of my mind. Angels or ages - who cares?!

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t quite know what to make of this odd, beautiful book—primarily because I’m unsure if it should be a book. Perhaps it should be at least two books. Angels and Ages is Gopnik’s attempt at dual emotional and intellectual biographies of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. The little hook on which he initially hangs this narrative is the fact they were born on the exact same day—February 12, 1809. A dual portrait of the scientist who decisively changed humanity’s understanding of itself and a U.S. President who, however great his accomplishments, did nothing quite so universally transformative—that’s an awful lot of weight for a shared birthday to bear. Nevertheless, Gopnik writes beautifully and fluidly, and it was a pleasure to read his analyses of the prose style of On The Origin of Species, his reflections on Lincoln’s love of Shakespeare, and his evocations of grief: Darwin prostrated by the death of his ten-year-daughter Annie, Lincoln devastated by the death of his 11-year-old son Willie. But I couldn’t resist wondering, why is this all in the same book? I’m sure other readers can make a case for the combination of two very different lives between the covers of this book, but I never really saw it.

[John Hood · Rating 5 out of 5]

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Bound - Miami SunPost

Feb. 12, 2009

Abe and Charlie

Adam Gopnik Gets with Lincoln & Darwin

By John Hood

When the stars collided way back on Feb. 12, 1809, they went out of their way to make a bang. For on that day born into this world were Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Of course no one knew then that those newborns would eventually become two of history’s most influential figures, but surely, whoever pulls the strings on our planet must’ve had some kind of idea what was in store.

Or not. Darwin would’ve taken his hard science and slapped me silly for even considering such a notion, while Lincoln surely would’ve used his lawyerly mind to dress me down to size. See, each of those cats believed in the preeminence of fact, not fictions, and neither of them had much use for the Almighty, of any kind.

In Adam Gopnik’s Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln and Modern Life (Knopf, $24.95), some of the facts of both lives are laid bare, especially with regard to how they relate to each other, either with affinity or in counterpoint. And despite the fact that these two contemporaries never met, there are a lot more correlations than you’d expect.

Indeed Darwin and Lincoln had much more in common than mere birthdays. “[A:]mong the first big men in history who belonged to what is sometimes called ‘the bourgeois ascendancy,’” both were devout family men, and both suffered from what were considered distinctly middle-class ailments. Lincoln was depressive, and Darwin was prone to panic attacks, which is to say they “had the same domestic pleasures and the same domestic demons” as many of us have today.

And, according to Gopnik, both Abe and Charlie found common ground in the anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, of 1844. Lincoln was an agnostic, if not at times a downright atheist, so he dug “the causality” of the book’s evolutionary idea. Darwin, to be sure, was already well under way in the development of his aligned theory, though in a much more exacting manner.

Furthermore, both were determined liberalists, “not in the well-meaning or wishy-washy” American sense, or “the savagely devoted to the free market” sense of the French, but in the British sense of John Stuart Mill, “in which an individual is committed, at the same time, to constitutional rule and individual freedom, to the power of the many and the free play of the mind.”

We’re speaking of science and democracy, the “two pillars” our society is based upon. If Darwin’s evolution and Lincoln’s emancipation are the embodiments of each, then it stands to reason that the lives of both would continue to resonate a full 200 years later.

Naturally Gopnik wasn’t the first to see a correlation between the contemporaries’ births — in fact, back in 1908 a writer named William Thayer lobbied for an international holiday to celebrate the lives of both men — but this collection of essays will surely propel the correlation to new heights — and to new depths.

And if, to historians, the same-day births of two of modernity’s greatest minds was an “intriguing coincidence,” to Gopnik it is the one miraculous twist of fate he allows to creep into his incredibly keen treatise. Like his subjects, he’s a firm believer in the affinity of fact, and he peppers his beloved broadside with the known and the proven. But Gopnik is equally interested in how both Darwin and Lincoln were as men, and despite the enduring hugeness of their presence, he grounds both as living, breathing beings.

Mostly though, Gopnik is indelibly taken with the eloquence of both Darwin and Lincoln, and their immense capacity to convey lofty and often unwieldy thoughts — both were possessed with the kind of communicable gifts someone in another age might attribute to gods.

Gopnik’s been penning essays in The New Yorker for 23 years, so he’s got chops enough to pull off even the farthest fathomed argument. In this case, however, it’s not the argument that’s a stretch, it’s the imagination, which here shows how two men used “the slow crawl of fact” to sweep history off its feet.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gopnik's thesis is not proven in this short collection of long essays. Not in the slightest. But that doesn't mean this book isn't worth reading. Rather than a sensible step-by-step building of connective tissue, an evolution of an idea, you might say, Gopnik wanders about and repeats himself and never really makes anything concise or clear. I did not leave this book thinking, "Yes! Darwin and Lincoln WERE midwives to the spirit of a new world! They DID reshape our understanding of what life is and how it attains meaning!" That Darwin and Lincoln were amazing harbingers of the next is a given but Gopnik doesn't really till new ground in demonstrating the idea. He does, however, bring up some interesting tidbits for deep thought and these, alone, make the book worth reading. For example;

"We can find plenty of astonishing ideas in that day, just as we will find traces of the astonishing ideas of the next century somewhere on the fringes of our own time."

"...these styles [the writing styles of Darwin and Lincoln] have in common the writer's faith in plain English, his hope that people's minds and hearts can be altered by the slow crawl of fact as much as by the long reach of revelation."

"The attempt to make Lincoln into just one more racist is part of the now common attempt to introduce a noxious equilibrium between minds and parties; liberals who struggle with their own prejudices are somehow equal in prejudice to those who never took the trouble to make the struggle. Imperfect effort at being just is no different than perfect indifference to it ... a good man who plays footsie for an evening under the table with a single bad idea becomes the equal of a man who spends a lifetime sharing a slovenly bed with an evil ideology."

For Kazin [a Lincoln biographer], Lincoln's God is neither the God of confident Christendom nor the punishing God of the Calvinist imagination but the God of both Job and John Donne, the God who is the stenographic name for the absolute mystery of being alive and watching men suffer while still holding in mind ideals that ennoble the suffering and in some strange way make sense of it."

"[On the Origin of Species] is both an explanation of evolution, an old idea, and a theory of natural selection, a new one. If you concentrated on the evolutionary part, which is, as Darwin knew, an old and long-present idea, one of Granddad's tall tales, then you could make it into a kind of progressivism--an explanation of eternal change and social improvement with a vitalist charge. If you concentrated on the natural selection part, the struggle for survival, you could make it into an endorsement of free markets or imperialism ..."

"People are different, in Darwin's view--he thought there were savages, primitives, at one end and civilized people at another--but what knit them all together was the habit of sympathy, which could be extended wherever, and as far as, we chose to place it."

"We should not judge the past by the standards of the present. Darwin wrote about "savages"; we wouldn't. (But then, we use words that our great-grandchildren will be shocked by, too--though which ones: wife? veal chops?)"

"...we are allowed only a tiny glimpse, in our hummingbird lives, of what duration and endurance and repetition can actually achieve. We have a moral and scientific duty to seek out those places--coral reefs and earthworm-plowed fields as well as fossil pits and mussel-moved mountains--where we can get at least a sense of how an earthworm can do a farmer's work, if you give him time."

"The tragedy of life is not that there is no God but that the generations through which it progresses are too tiny to count very much. There isn't a special providence in the fall of a sparrow, but try telling that to the sparrows."

"The pacifists are not always right. But the warmongers are almost always wrong."

"Science lets us think big but we still feel small. No cosmologist has ever felt more serenely about his tenure case by contemplating the vastness of the universe. We get the big picture, but it's not where we live."

Just using these ideas as jumping off points for thought and further reading make Gopnik's book more than a worthwhile way to spend a few hours' time.

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Extraordinary' is a rather hyped-up word to apply to this meditative, intelligent book - or booklet; while not exactly short, it's a focused view onto two lives that have been expansively and exhaustively documented.

Gopnik notes that it is of course coincidence that Lincoln and Darwin were born on the same day, and sketches out the differences in their social contexts. The connection he draws between them is that both found a way of communicating that allowed them to bring into the world ideas that changed the way Western society thinks, behaves, and views its history.

Lincoln is not a figure who particularly interests me, so while I enjoyed those chapters, it was the Darwin chapters that made the book for me. Gopnik explicates the way Darwin wrote and structured arguments - his long, slow, detailed amassing of eventually undeniable detail, and his quiet, occasionally humorously understated conclusions.

I thoroughly recommend the book if you're up to a thoughtful read - it's not a snappy, quirky book, but one which rewards being taken slowly. Gopnik also includes a bibliography which is worth the price of admission in itself - here's what I wrote on my blog:

I recently re-read Peter Doherty's 'A Beginner's Guide to Winning the Nobel Prize'. While I still find the book over-long and over-written (although there is some terrific stuff in there about the business of being a research scientist) the thing that really struck me was how good the list of recommended reading is.

When I get to the end of a book that has piqued my interest, by an author who I've come to trust, I want them to tell me what they found helpful and interesting when they were doing their research. Not just a bibliography, but recommendations of where I should go next.

Reading Doherty's book put me on to James Gleick's bio of Feynman, James Watson's simultaneously wonderful and infuriating 'The Double Helix' and a terrific book about the 1918-19 flu epidemic by John M Barry that I plan to re-read as soon as I get some breathing space. It also reminded me that Brenda Maddox's biography of Rosalind Franklin is still languishing on my to-read list.

Fifty pages into Adam Gopnik's 'Angels and Ages: A short book about Darwin, Lincoln and modern life' I flipped to the bibliography. And was delighted.

In one of the Darwin chapters of the book, Gopnik writes about the pressures Darwin was under as he finally sat down to write 'On the Origin of Species'

All the pleasures and pressures of the past decade acted on him: the pleasure of explanation in simple terms, the pressure of not being understood; the pleasure of having accumulated abundant examples, the pressure of succumbing to overabundant illustration; the pleasure of having a clear argument to make, the pressure of having to make it clear; the pleasure of pushing at last to make a summary of an argument, the crucial pressure of having Alfred Wallace, polite and deferential but, after all, also in possession of the same theory, waiting.

Of course, this is the same situation that faced Gopnik (and any other writer who's got to that stage where they sit down, photocopies and books amassed around them, and try to face down the blank screen). His 'bibliographic note' summarises this beautifully: 'The Darwin literature is merely immeasurable; the Lincoln literature is infinite. When you are already up to your armpits in it, you realise you have hardly dipped a toe.'

Gopnik provides two pages each of recommended reading on Darwin and Lincoln - not a list of books, but a brief summary of his research journey, of what he read, and what he learnt, and what he believes we will find useful and engaging. It's not just a bibliography, it's a deeply personalised recommendation, and I love it.

[Marjorie Hakala · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a great fan of Gopnik's essays about Paris, and of the one-off pieces of his I've read in the New Yorker. I like Through the Children's Gate too, but after spending some time with that book, particularly its introduction, I had the sense Gopnik was getting tired of that form. His conclusions came with a bit of a shrug: there's another essay done.

That lassitude is nowhere to be found in this book. Gopnik tackles the subject of "Lincoln, Darwin, and modern life" with both urgency and flair. There are points to be made, and they are (it is both implied and stated) of immense importance to anyone reading this book--having to do with things like the difference between the American Civil War and other wars of secession, or the non-racism of classical Darwinism and its utter separateness from "social Darwinism." At the same time, though, the author's urgency doesn't prevent him from taking time and extreme care with the language. A bravura passage about revisionist views of Lincoln that portray him as "just another racist" left me breathless, while a paragraph about the hobbyist gentleman naturalists of Darwin's time made me grin with open delight.

In a book that's very concerned with rhetoric, Gopnik has studied his subjects closely and borrowed those tactics that are most useful to his purpose. He picks up Lincoln's habit of finishing a passage with succinct sentences of short words, even while displaying in his own long, stylish, hypotactic sentences most of the time, and indulging in the alliterative play of nineteenth-century figures like Carlisle and Ruskin (whom I can identify here because Gopnik did it first). See, for instance, the title of the book, or the paragraph about how marriages are sustained by "lust, laughter, and loyalty."

What this book does not have in great quantity is narrative. It's a lack I felt more keenly in the Darwin chapters, since I knew so much less about him in advance. Having finished the book, I am still relatively in the dark about Darwin's education, and though there are frequent references to Huxley's debate with Bishop Wilberforce, this is not the book to tell you what they argued about or, as far as I can tell, Huxley's first name, which was not Aldous. (Having checked elsewhere, I can tell you the man in question was Thomas Henry Huxley.) There were times when the author's historical arguments rang a little hollow--not false necessarily, just not quite convincing--because not enough of a story had been told. I trust Gopnik's account of grief in nineteenth-century parents, as far as it goes, but I'm not sure I believe that it was substantially different from bereavement in earlier times. So be it: look elsewhere for history and biography of the usual sort.

For much of the book I thought Gopnik was displaying a somewhat shallow understanding of religion, particularly in the Darwin chapters, which for the most part accept a straightforward opposition between Darwinism and Christianity without delving into what parts of the religion evolutionary theory does and does not address. The Lincoln chapters do better, examining the president's changing views of what he tended to call "providence." And then the concluding chapter gives a convincing and downright beautiful account of all the aspects of religion that are untouched by evolutionary theory. I probably wouldn't have written the sentence "A life without Christmas is a life without stars," but Gopnik, with the whole of the book and of his authorly persona behind him, pulls it off. So there's that objection addressed.

There are no other nits I can find to pick. This book is a masterful use of essay-craft, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

[Ernie · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.)

[Feisty Harriet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you know that Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same day of the same year? I didn’t. In this intriguing book Gopnik discusses the similarities between Lincoln and Darwin, the social legacy’s they created, their effect on their world and on the history of ours, and how in many ways they both are bastians of change. Lincoln for his politics, policies, and amazing speeches during the Civil War; Darwin for meticulous study and research on evolution and biology and his published works that are written in the style of a novel, not a text book. Both men went against the grain of their greater societies and both championed a more human experience. That may sound odd when talking about Darwin and his evolution theories, but it’s true. This is not a biography on either Lincoln or Darwin, but Gopnik compares them side by side on a number of issues and finds many similarities (it is meticulously researched and cited, but doesn’t read that way at all). Basically, it’s a wonderful non-traditional semi-biographical book with a lot of Gopnik’s own opinions sprinkled throughout. In some ways it reminded me of two books Gretchen Rubin wrote pre-Happiness Project. Rubin wrote 40 chapters on Winston Churchill and JFK (separate books, mind you) and each chapter is well researched but based on a fairly obscure fact; all together you get a much clearer picture of the human and a much more condensed version of that human’s place in history. Those books are wonderful, and this one on Lincoln and Darwin is just as compelling. At just about 200 pages it’s also a quick read, and made me want to find a more traditional biography on Darwin and finally crack open The Origin. Several years ago I read a lovely book by Gopnik about his time living in Paris, it wasn’t until I writing this post that I knew he is a regular contributor to The New Yorker as well.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoy Adam Gopnik's writing style. It's clear and fun, like drinking a refreshing beverage. My first read of his, "Paris to the Moon", was a great recounting of his family's time in France. This book was also very well done, except the ending just kept going.

Gopnik attempts, with great success, to show how Lincoln and Darwin were linked together in history through their great accomplishments. The author does lavish quite a bit of praise on these men and they deserve it, but he does include a bit of the negative sides of their personalities and defeats. However, it's not the most balanced approach. I wasn't reading this thinking, "Man, I wish I knew more about the dark sides of these guys" but rather just wishing that he wasn't so gushing at times.

Despite that, his analysis of their lives was great. He showed how the deaths of their children affected them and how their personal quirks, hobbies, and desires made them the men they were. Darwin played his bassoon for earthworms to determine if they could hear, and Lincoln would walk around the Soldiers' Home reciting scenes from "Macbeth" and other Shakespeare favorites.

The last chapter has some more essential information about the two men, but Gopnik blows the dam wide open when he has trouble trying to find the end. It kind of reminded me of the end of the last "Lord of the Rings" movie when you think it's over, but it's really not. The writing is still high quality and the points he makes are not without their sound reason and logic, but he keeps going, and going, trying to not end the book. It was an odd, yet well-written ending.

Overall, I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn a little more about Lincoln and Darwin but doesn't want to read the thousands of volumes that have been written about them.