Adam's Ancestors : Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins

by Livingstone, David N.

• ISBN13: 9780801888137
• ISBN10: 0801888131
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-04-11
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

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?"

Author Biography

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.

Table of Contents

Beginnings: Questioning the Mosaic Record	p. 1
Heresy: Isaac La Peyrere and the Pre-Adamite Scandal	p. 26
Polity: The Cultural Politics of the Adamic Narrative	p. 52
Apologetics: Pre-Adamism and the Harmony of Science and Religion	p. 80
Anthropology: Adam, Adamites, and the Science of Ethnology	p. 109
Ancestors: Evolution and the Birth of Adam	p. 137
Bloodlines: Pre-Adamism and the Politics of Racial Supremacy	p. 169
Shadows: The Continuing Legacy of Pre-Adamite Discourse	p. 201
Dimensions: Concluding Reflections	p. 219
Notes	p. 225
Bibliography	p. 255
Index	p. 287
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