In this award-winning collection, the bestselling author of Gilead offers us other ways of thinking about history, religion, and society. Whether rescuing "Calvinism" and its creator Jean Cauvin from the repressive "puritan" stereotype, or considering how the McGuffey readers were inspired by Midwestern abolitionists, or the divide between the Bible and Darwinism, Marilynne Robinson repeatedly sends her reader back to the primary texts that are central to the development of American culture but little read or acknowledged today.

A passionate and provocative celebration of ideas, the old arts of civilization, and life's mystery, The Death of Adam is, in the words of Robert D. Richardson, Jr., "a grand, sweeping, blazing, brilliant, life-changing book."

Praise

"American culture is enriched by having the whole range of Marilynne Robinson's work"--Jane Vanderburgh, The Boston Globe

"A valuable contribution to American life and letters."--Kathleen Norris

"A useful antidote to the increasingly crude and slogan-loving culture we inhabit."--Doris Lessing

"Robinson’s thinking is all in the service of humanity's survival, spiritually and environmentally."--Charles Baxter

"One of Robinson’s great merits as an essayist is her refusal to take her opinions secondhand. Her book is a goad to renewed curiosity."--The New York Times Book Review

About the Author(s)

Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is the author of the modern classic Housekeeping--winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award--and two books of nonfiction, Mother Country (FSG, 1989) and The Death of Adam. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

photo: ©Nancy Crampton

Table of Contents

Introduction

Dawinism

Facing Reality

Family

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

McGuffey and the Abolitionists

Puritans and Prigs

Margueritte de Navarre

Psalm Eight

Wilderness