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Book Cover for: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, Stephen Greenblatt

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Stephen Greenblatt

Paperback
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Reader Score

84%

84% of readers

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Critic Reviews

Good

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Finalist:Cundill Prize -Historical Literature (2012)
In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old manuscript off a dusty shelf in a remote monastery, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. He was Poggio Bracciolini, the greatest book hunter of the Renaissance. His discovery, Lucretius' ancient poem On the Nature of Things, had been almost entirely lost to history for more than a thousand years.

It was a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functions without the aid of gods, that religious fear is damaging to human life, that pleasure and virtue are not opposites but intertwined, and that matter is made up of very small material particles in eternal motion, randomly colliding and swerving in new directions. Its return to circulation changed the course of history. The poem's vision would shape the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein, and--in the hands of Thomas Jefferson--leave its trace on the Declaration of Independence.

From the gardens of the ancient philosophers to the dark chambers of monastic scriptoria during the Middle Ages to the cynical, competitive court of a corrupt and dangerous pope, Greenblatt brings Poggio's search and discovery to life in a way that deepens our understanding of the world we live in now.

"An intellectually invigorating, nonfiction version of a Dan Brown-like mystery-in-the-archives thriller." --Boston Globe

Book Details

  • Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
  • Publish Date: Sep 4th, 2012
  • Pages: 368
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 8.22in - 5.55in - 0.94in - 0.98lb
  • EAN: 9780393343403
  • Categories: • Europe - Renaissance• Movements - Renaissance• History & Surveys - General

About the Author

Greenblatt, Stephen: - Stephen Greenblatt, PhD, is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University and general editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature. He is author of the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning The Swerve.

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What people are saying

Mentioner image for: Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
1 year

Francis Ford Coppola is a film director, producer, and screenwriter.

Regarding that powerful word ‘Pleasure’ I whole-heartedly recommend a great read: THE SWERVE by Stephen Greenblatt.

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Mentioner image for: Antigone Journal
Antigone Journal
@AntigoneJournal
1 year

An open forum for Classics—Ancient Greece, Rome, and their influence. We publish original articles by academics, students, & enthusiasts. On summer break!

Do you know Stephen Greenblatt's book The Swerve: How the World Became Modern? Its thesis, that the rediscovery of Lucretius' Epicurean poem De Rerum Natura forged the Renaissance, wowed many readers. But Luke Slattery now asks, what if it's totally wrong? https://t.co/WySPxpW3Eu

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Mentioner image for: David H. Montgomery
David H. Montgomery
@dhmontgomery
2 years

Words, code and charts. Senior data journalist with @YouGovAmerica. Host of the French history podcast @TheSiecle.

“Most teachers of the humanities lived itinerant lives, traveling from city to city, giving lectures on a few favorite authors, and then relentlessly moving on, in the hope of finding new patrons.” — Stephen Greenblatt on Italy in the early Renaissance (from “The Swerve”)

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Critics’ reviews

Praise for this book

In this gloriously learned page-turner, both biography and intellectual history, Harvard Shakespearean scholar Greenblatt turns his attention to the front end of the Renaissance as the origin of Western culture's foundation: the free questioning of truth.--starred review "Publishers Weekly"
More wonderfully illuminating Renaissance history from a master scholar and historian.--starred review "Kirkus Reviews"
It's fascinating to watch Greenblatt trace the dissemination of these ideas through 15th-century Europe and beyond, thanks in good part to Bracciolini's recovery of Lucretius' poem.-- "Salon.com"
But Swerve is an intense, emotional telling of a true story, one with much at stake for all of us. And the further you read, the more astonishing it becomes. It's a chapter in how we became what we are, how we arrived at the worldview of the present. No one can tell the whole story, but Greenblatt seizes on a crucial pivot, a moment of recovery, of transmission, as amazing as anything in fiction.-- "Philadelphia Inquirer"
[The Swerve] is thrilling, suspenseful tale that left this reader inspired and full of questions about the ongoing project known as human civilization.-- "Boston Globe"
Can a poem change the world? Harvard professor and bestselling Shakespeare biographer Greenblatt ably shows in this mesmerizing intellectual history that it can. A richly entertaining read about a radical ancient Roman text that shook Renaissance Europe and inspired shockingly modern ideas (like the atom) that still reverberate today.-- "Newsweek"
A fascinating, intelligent look at what may well be the most historically resonant book-hunt of all time.-- "Booklist"
Pleasure may or may not be the true end of life, but for book lovers, few experiences can match the intellectual-aesthetic enjoyment delivered by a well-wrought book. In the world of serious nonfiction, Stephen Greenblatt is a pleasure maker without peer.-- "Newsday"
The Swerve is one of those brilliant works of non-fiction that's so jam-packed with ideas and stories it literally boggles the mind.--Maureen Corrigan "NPR/Fresh Air"
The ideas in The Swerve are tucked, cannily, inside a quest narrative. . . . The details that Mr. Greenblatt supplies throughout The Swerve are tangy and exact. . . . There is abundant evidence here of what is Mr. Greenblatt's great and rare gift as a writer: an ability, to borrow a phrase from The Swerve, to feel fully 'the concentrated force of the buried past.'-- "New York Times"
In The Swerve, the literary historian Stephen Greenblatt investigates why [Lucretius'] book nearly dies, how it was saved and what its rescue means to us.--Sarah Bakewell "New York Times Book Review"
In this outstandingly constructed assessment of the birth of philosophical modernity, renowned Shakespeare scholar Greenblatt deftly transports reader to the dawn of the Renaissance...Readers from across the humanities will find this enthralling account irresistible.--starred review "Library Journal"
Every tale of the preservation of intellectual history should be as rich and satisfying as Stephen Greenblatt's history of the reclamation and acclamation of Lucretius's De rerum natura from obscurity.--John McFarland "Shelf Awareness"

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