The Second Creation

A stunning revision of our founding document’s evolving history that forces us to confront anew the question that animated the founders so long ago: What is our Constitution? Americans widely believe that the United States Constitution was created when it was drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788. But in a shrewd rereading of the Founding era, Jonathan Gienapp upends this long-held assumption, recovering the unknown story of American constitutional creation in the decade after its adoption—a story with explosive implications for current debates over constitutional originalism and interpretation. When the Constitution first appeared, it was shrouded in uncertainty. Not only was its meaning unclear, but so too was its essential nature. Was the American Constitution a written text, or something else? Was it a legal text? Was it finished or unfinished? What rules would guide its interpretation? Who would adjudicate competing readings? As political leaders put the Constitution to work, none of these questions had answers. Through vigorous debates they confronted the document’s uncertainty, and—over time—how these leaders imagined the Constitution radically changed. They had begun trying to fix, or resolve, an imperfect document, but they ended up fixing, or cementing, a very particular notion of the Constitution as a distinctively textual and historical artifact circumscribed in space and time. This means that some of the Constitution’s most definitive characteristics, ones which are often treated as innate, were only added later and were thus contingent and optional.

The Second Creation is a dramatic--and human--chronicle of scientific investigators at the last frontier of knowledge. Robert Crease and Charles Mann take the reader on a fascinating journey in search of "unification" with brilliant scientists such as Niels Bohr, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg, and many others. They provide the definitive and highly entertaining story of the development of modern physics, and the human story of the physicists who set out to find the "theory of everything."

An exploration of the dialogue that emerged after 1776 between different visions of what it meant to use new technologies to transform the land. After 1776, the former American colonies began to reimagine themselves as a unified, self-created community. Technologies had an important role in the resulting national narratives, and a few technologies assumed particular prominence. Among these were the axe, the mill, the canal, the railroad, and the irrigation dam. In this book David Nye explores the stories that clustered around these technologies. In doing so, he rediscovers an American story of origins, with America conceived as a second creation built in harmony with God's first creation. While mainstream Americans constructed technological foundation stories to explain their place in the New World, however, marginalized groups told other stories of destruction and loss. Native Americans protested the loss of their forests, fishermen resisted the construction of dams, and early environmentalists feared the exhaustionof resources. A water mill could be viewed as the kernel of a new community or as a new way to exploit labor. If passengers comprehended railways as part of a larger narrative about American expansion and progress, many farmers attacked railroad land grants. To explore these contradictions, Nye devotes alternating chapters to narratives of second creation and to narratives of those who rejected it.Nye draws on popular literature, speeches, advertisements, paintings, and many other media to create a history of American foundation stories. He shows how these stories were revised periodically, as social and economic conditions changed, without ever erasing the earlier stories entirely. The image of the isolated frontier family carving a homestead out of the wilderness with an axe persists to this day, alongside later images and narratives. In the book's conclusion, Nye considers the relation between these earlier stories and such later American developments as the conservation movement, narratives of environmental recovery, and the idealization of wilderness.

The cloning of Dolly in 1996 from the cell of an adult sheep was a pivotal moment in history. For the first time, a team of scientists, led by Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell, was able to clone a whole mammal using a single cultured adult body cell, a breakthrough that revolutionized three technologies--genetic engineering, genomics, and cloning by nuclear transfer from adult cells—and brought science ever closer to the possibility of human cloning. In this definitive account, the scientists who accomplished this stunning feat explain their hypotheses and experiments, their conclusions, and the ethical and scientific ramifications of their work. Written with award-winning science writer Colin Tudge, The Second Creation is a landmark work that details the most exciting and challenging scientific discovery of the twentieth century.

Possibly the only book of its kind, Creation and the Second Coming captivates the reader by linking our origins with our destiny. Blending biblical stories like Noah andJesus teaching His disciples, Dr. Henry Morris weaves an intriguing resource for prophecy and creationism buffs.

The Eden story narrated in Genesis 2-3 graphically describes the first couple's installation in the garden of Eden and their expulsion from it. These two themes have inspired certain scholars to consider this story as a summary of Israel's history until the tragedy of exile and a prologue to the literary composition commonly called Enneateuch (Genesis - 2 Kings). Such a hypothesis is based on the premise that both Eden story and Israel's history have the same end : expulsion. The reason for such an end in both is disobedience. This thesis takes up this scholary hypothesis and examines its viability. Is the thematic parallel between the loss of the garden of Eden and that of Jerusalem itself suffient to argue for the concept of Enneateuch? If Gen. 2-3 were to have served as a prologue to the Enneateuch, why does Gen. 1 precede it in the current text? If Enneateuch were to have existed, when, how and why was the Pentateuch created? This thesis analyzes Gen 2-3 in the light of these questions and with the help of the diachronic mode of interpretation. Its results demonstrate that this story had three compositional stages in this formation (pre-exilic, exilic and post-exilic). In the pre-exilic period, it might have been composed to serve as an anti-Babylonian creation story. In the exilic period, it could have been rewoked with the theme of disobedience and punishment to reflect upon the disaster of exile. This exilic redaction could have been close to the Deuteronomistic theology and it might have served as a prologue to the Deuteronomistic history wich was preoccupied with the exile. During the Hexateuchal and Pentateuchal redaction in the Persian period, Gen. 2-3 could have undergone a third redaction in the post-P style in order to be juxtaposed with the P creation story (Gen. 1) and to create a synthesis between the P and non-P theologies. Such results show that Gen. 2-3 might not have been a prologue to this concept of Enneateuch at any stage of its formation. But the present thesis is not limited merely to the history of the text : in attempting to bring out the biblical message of this story, it shaws that Gen. 2-3 is an expression of Israel's faith resulting from its history with YHWH and from its creative confrontation with its surronding dominant cultures, and intended to construct a religious and anthropological identity for Israël.

A stunning revision of our founding document’s evolving history that forces us to confront anew the question that animated the founders so long ago: What is our Constitution? Americans widely believe that the United States Constitution was created when it was drafted in 1787 and ratified in 1788. But in a shrewd rereading of the Founding era, Jonathan Gienapp upends this long-held assumption, recovering the unknown story of American constitutional creation in the decade after its adoption—a story with explosive implications for current debates over constitutional originalism and interpretation. When the Constitution first appeared, it was shrouded in uncertainty. Not only was its meaning unclear, but so too was its essential nature. Was the American Constitution a written text, or something else? Was it a legal text? Was it finished or unfinished? What rules would guide its interpretation? Who would adjudicate competing readings? As political leaders put the Constitution to work, none of these questions had answers. Through vigorous debates they confronted the document’s uncertainty, and—over time—how these leaders imagined the Constitution radically changed. They had begun trying to fix, or resolve, an imperfect document, but they ended up fixing, or cementing, a very particular notion of the Constitution as a distinctively textual and historical artifact circumscribed in space and time. This means that some of the Constitution’s most definitive characteristics, ones which are often treated as innate, were only added later and were thus contingent and optional.

Now available in paperback, The Second Creation is the riveting story of the remarkable 100-year quest to understand the fundamental principles of matter and energy.

An exploration of the dialogue that emerged after 1776 between different visions of what it meant to use new technologies to transform the land. After 1776, the former American colonies began to reimagine themselves as a unified, self-created community. Technologies had an important role in the resulting national narratives, and a few technologies assumed particular prominence. Among these were the axe, the mill, the canal, the railroad, and the irrigation dam. In this book David Nye explores the stories that clustered around these technologies. In doing so, he rediscovers an American story of origins, with America conceived as a second creation built in harmony with God's first creation. While mainstream Americans constructed technological foundation stories to explain their place in the New World, however, marginalized groups told other stories of destruction and loss. Native Americans protested the loss of their forests, fishermen resisted the construction of dams, and early environmentalists feared the exhaustionof resources. A water mill could be viewed as the kernel of a new community or as a new way to exploit labor. If passengers comprehended railways as part of a larger narrative about American expansion and progress, many farmers attacked railroad land grants. To explore these contradictions, Nye devotes alternating chapters to narratives of second creation and to narratives of those who rejected it.Nye draws on popular literature, speeches, advertisements, paintings, and many other media to create a history of American foundation stories. He shows how these stories were revised periodically, as social and economic conditions changed, without ever erasing the earlier stories entirely. The image of the isolated frontier family carving a homestead out of the wilderness with an axe persists to this day, alongside later images and narratives. In the book's conclusion, Nye considers the relation between these earlier stories and such later American developments as the conservation movement, narratives of environmental recovery, and the idealization of wilderness.

The major monotheistic religions of the world--Judaism, Christianity and Islam--have certain elements in common, particularly in their scriptures concerning the beginnings of life and the early history of human beings. This shared beginning is compellingly worth further study. Common ground and common threads can only help a dialogue between people of different faiths. This reference work could be a tool toward greater understanding of other faiths and focuses on the story of the creation of the universe and of humans. Part One traces the development of the earth and its inhabitants from a scientific viewpoint so that the humanistic perspective may be contrasted with the scriptural accounts to follow. Part Two features an introduction to the Tanakh, information on the Torah, and what is known about its authors, and other influences on the Jewish religion, followed by actual scriptures from the Torah from the creation through the destruction of the Tower of Babel. Then a section each is devoted to an explanation of the Catholic, Protestant and Fundamentalist Christian interpretations of these stories, citing scripture as appropriate. Part Three affords a Muslim perspective with excerpts from the Sirah that refer to events and characters from the early chapters of Genesis. The appendices are rich--various chronologies of similar events based on the different scriptures, tables of contents for the various holy books, tables presenting summaries of a particular perspective on a subject or comparisons between two perspectives and much more.