The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought

In these ten essays, Marilynne Robinson brilliantly addresses subjects that have become the territory of specialists - religion, history, the state of society. The writing is contrarian in method and spirit, as she states in her introduction, but Who can imagine how the things we call ideas live in the world, or how they change, or how they perish, or how they can be renewed? In the tradition of nineteenth-century novelists who turned to the essay, Marilynne Robinson offers a beautiful and authoritative approach to refining the ideas our culture has handed down to us. Whether considering how the McGuffey readers were inspired by Midwestern abolitionists; how Creationism, long owned by the Religious Right, has spurred on contemporary Darwinism; or how John Calvin, who was a Frenchman in Geneva, points to America's continental origins, Robinson writes meticulously and with great conviction. Her essays are filled with the excitement of discovery.

"This is a grand, sweeping, blazing, brilliant, life-changing book. One turns the last page shaken, but also believing that if a voice such as Robinson's can be raised in our time, then a new reformation might be on its way. It is the most important book on religion and culture for America's self-understanding since Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, a book which, not incidentally, Robinson demolishes." Robert D. Richardson, Jr., author of Emerson: The Mind on Fire

In the tradition of nineteenth-century novelist who turned to the essay, Robinson offers a beautiful and authoritative approach to refining the ideas our culture has handed down to us.