In 'The Swerve,' Stephen Greenblatt embarks on a riveting journey through history, tracing the serendipitous discovery of an ancient text that could change everything. This book explores the impact of Lucretius's 'On the Nature of Things,' a poem that challenges the assumptions of the universe and humanity's place within it. Greenblatt weaves together tales of the Renaissance, the fate of knowledge through time, and the powerful forces that seek to suppress free thought. With each turn of the page, readers are invited to ponder the fragility of ideas and the triumph of curiosity over dogma. Can a single manuscript truly alter the course of civilization?
By Stephen Greenblatt
Published: 2011
"The universe is all that is, or was, or ever will be."
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction Winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-Fiction One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it. Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions. The copying and translation of this ancient book-the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age-fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.
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“The universe is all that is, or was, or ever will be.”
The Swerve
By Stephen Greenblatt
Discover a world of knowledge through our extensive collection of book summaries.
Stephen Greenblatt is an acclaimed American literary critic, historian, and scholar, best known for his contributions to Shakespearean studies and the development of new historicism. A professor of English at Harvard University, Greenblatt has authored several influential works, including 'Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare,' 'The Swerve: How the World Became Modern,' which won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction, and 'The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve.' His writing is characterized by its engaging narrative style, blending rigorous scholarship with accessible prose, and often draws connections between literature and historical contexts, making complex ideas approachable for a broad audience.
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