Angels and Ages (eBook)

On February 12th, 1809, two men were born an ocean apart: Charles Darwin on an English country estate, Abraham Lincoln in a Kentucky log cabin. Their great parallel lives were to transform humanity's understanding of itself. Adam Gopnik takes the coincidence of their birth as the starting-point to explore these historical giants, showing how they informed their lives and actions based on argument from reason, in the process using language that was as revolutionary as their ideas. And, in the loss of their favoured child, they shared a private tragedy for which their philosophical views on death would prove little comfort.

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'Adam Gopnik has taken a coincidence and turned it into a theory of everything, or at least of everything important ... Outstanding' - Andrew MarrOn 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. In this bicentennial twin portrait, Adam Gopnik shows how these two giants, who never met, changed the way we think about the very nature of existence, and that their great achievements proceeded from the same source: argument from reason. The revolutions they effected shaped the world we live in, while the intellectual heritage and method that informed their parallel lives has profound implications for our present age. Filled with little-known stories and unfamiliar characters, Angels and Ages reveals these men in a new, shared light, and provides a fascinating insight into the origins of our modern vision and liberal values.