The Everlasting Man is a strange kind of Christian apologetics, which relates the story of man from the beginning of time. Chesterton gives a delightful thrashing to the anthropologists who draw amazing conclusions from minimal evidence; emphasizes that whether or not evolution is true, it offers absolutely no reasonable explanation for the vast divide between man and the animals; pokes some fun at the silliness of comparative religion; and teases the historical critics who draw insupportable claims about the origins of orthodox Christianity.

I was actually more engaged at the beginning of the book than I was as it wore on; he seems to apply most of his wit and humor towards the beginning. At times Chesterton is "too clever," to self-satisfied, too caught up in the beauty of his own language, but there is no denying his wit and his insight, and his zingers do zing. This is entertaining, intellectual apologetics of a kind rarely found; indeed, not found anywhere else that I can think of. Unfortunately, I borrowed it form the library, and so I could not highlight my favorite lines. Perhaps it is just as well, or three-fourths of the book might have been underlined by the end. But from it I take away these points: that the cave man was likely more human than the anthropologists make him out to be; that the academics of comparative religion confuse mythology with actual religious systems; and that Christianity was the first thing to combine, utterly, both philosophy and religion.

The apologetics are somewhat random and lack a clear organization; he seems to say what he thinks when he thinks of it, almost in a train of thought fashion, although there are loose thematic divisions for the chapters. I think Chesterton seems to occasionally fall into the same trap he has criticized others for: attributing psychological motives to people whose motives he could not know. All and all though, an excellent book.