History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom

In 1865, Andrew Dickson White helped found Cornell University with a radical premise: education free from sectarian religious control, where science could flourish. This book is his meticulously researched argument for why that vision mattered. White traces the long, often bloody conflict between scientific discovery and theological orthodoxy across Christian history, from the Church's violent resistance to heliocentrism to the persecution of scientists who dared to question creation narratives. He marshals hundreds of years of evidence showing that every time religious authorities suppressed scientific inquiry in the name of doctrine, both faith and knowledge suffered. The book is impassioned but never simplistic: White acknowledges the genuine spiritual needs religion serves while contending that捆绑ing science to theology cramps human understanding. Though written in 1896, its central argument has lost no urgency. The battles White chronicled over evolution, geology, and the nature of the cosmos still echo in school board fights and culture wars today. For readers interested in the intellectual history of the modern world, this remains an essential, provocative work.