Angels and Ages: A short book about Darwin, Lincoln and modern life

For the first time a brilliant writer shows us that the abolition of slavery and the publication of the Origin of Species, which together created the modern world, share profound intellectual similarities

'Adam Gopnik has taken a coincidence and turned it into a theory of everything, or at least of everything important ... Outstanding' - Andrew Marr

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. 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.