Angels and ages : a short book about Darwin, Lincoln, and modern life / Adam Gopnik.

On February 12, 1809, two men were born an ocean apart: Abraham Lincoln in a one-room Kentucky log cabin; Charles Darwin on an English country estate. Each would see his life's work inspire a stark change in mankind's understanding of itself. In this bicentennial twin portrait, Adam Gopnik shows how these two giants, who never met, altered the way we think about death and time--about the very nature of earthly existence.