Adam's Ancestors

Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4214-0065-5
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press

Buch, Englisch, 320 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 512 g

Reihe: Medicine, Science, and Religion in Historical Context

Winner of the Selection for Professional Reading List of the U.S. Marine Corps

Although the idea that all human beings are descended from Adam is a long-standing conviction in the West, another version of this narrative exists: human beings inhabited the Earth before, or alongside, Adam, and their descendants still occupy the planet.

In this engaging and provocative work, David N. Livingstone traces the history of the idea of non-adamic humanity, and the debates surrounding it, from the Middle Ages to the present day. From a multidisciplinary perspective, Livingstone examines how this alternative idea has been used for cultural, religious, and political purposes. He reveals how what began as biblical criticism became a theological apologetic to reconcile religion with science—evolution in particular—and was later used to support arguments for white supremacy and segregation.

From heresy to orthodoxy, from radicalism to conservatism, from humanitarianism to racism, Adam's Ancestors tells an intriguing tale of twists and turns in the cultural politics surrounding the age-old question, "Where did we come from?"

Autoren/Hrsg.

Livingstone, David N.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religion & Wissenschaft
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften, Formalen Wissenschaften & Technik
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Mittelalterliche, neuzeitliche Archäologie (Europa)
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface
1. Beginnings: Questioning the Mosaic Record
2. Heresy: Issac La Peyrère and the Pre-Adamite Scandal
3. Polity: The Cultural Politics of the Adamic Narrative
4. Apologetics: Pre-Adamism and the Harmony of Science and Religion
5. Anthropology: Adam, Adamites, and the Science of Ethnology
6. Ancestors: Evolution and the Birth of Adam
7. Bloodlines: Pre-Adamism and the Politics of Racial Supremacy
8. Shadows: The Continuing Legacy of Pre-Adamite Discourse
9. Dimensions: Concluding Reflections
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Livingstone, David N.
David N. Livingstone is a professor of geography and intellectual history at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is author of Adam's Ancestors: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins, also published by Johns Hopkins.

David N. Livingstone is a professor of geography and intellectual history at the Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, and author of several books, including Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge, The Geographical Tradition, and Darwin's Forgotten Defenders.