In the late nineteenth century, John William Draper’s (1811–1882) History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science helped popularize the “conflict thesis”—the idea that science and Christianity are locked in a state of perpetual conflict. Today, most historians of science reject the conflict thesis, noting Draper’s reliance on misleading and inaccurate historical evidence. In one infamous example, Draper claimed that medieval Christians believed the earth was flat until the voyages of Columbus, de Gama, and Magellan settled the issue. In reality, Europeans knew the earth was round over 1,500 years before Columbus. Draper’s book was translated into 10 languages and shaped the way many people thought about religion and science in the twentieth century. This copy is in the original 1875 red-and-black-printed cloth binding.