The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt

Apr 08, 2013 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been revised and can now be seen at Shelf Indulgence (a Group Blog).

Changed my life forever, did this book.

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Sep 19, 2012 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, history, over-there, sky-cake, non-fiction

Two thousand years ago a Roman named Lucretius wrote a poem that described a universe guided by physical laws rather than the whims of mystical deities and also advised that people should pursue happiness rather than spend their lives trying to appease gods who don’t exist . As I write this in 2012 certain parts of the world have been rioting and people are dying because some felt that a You Tube video insulted their religion. My own country has a constant political tug of war between the people...more Two thousand years ago a Roman named Lucretius wrote a poem that described a universe guided by physical laws rather than the whims of mystical deities and also advised that people should pursue happiness rather than spend their lives trying to appease gods who don’t exist . As I write this in 2012 certain parts of the world have been rioting and people are dying because some felt that a You Tube video insulted their religion. My own country has a constant political tug of war between the people who want to run things with that whole “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” part of the Constitution in mind while others think we should just throw that out and use the Bible as our rule book.

We are a race of slow learners.

Lucretius’s poem was apparently not only an extremely thorough explanation of Epicurean philosophy, it was also a well constructed and beautiful piece of writing that was almost lost to history. Greenblatt does an outstanding job of laying out the significance of Epicureanism, how it was almost stamped out by the rise of Christianity and why the poem rescued by chance by an Italian humanist and scholar was a spark that helped usher in the modern world.

I especially liked the section where Greenblatt describes how the Christian faith turned most of the public against one of the central principles of Epicureanism; seeking pleasure. ‘Seeking pleasure’ in the Epicurean sense doesn’t mean maxing out your credit cards in Vegas to hire a couple of hookers for a cocaine fueled weekend. It’s more in the ‘How about a nice cup of tea and a good book by a warm fire on a rainy day?’ kind of thing.

Yet the church managed to convince the faithful that it was more spiritual to seek punishment from an angry God, and they tagged Epicureans as a bunch of wild orgy types when in fact it’s not about hedonism, it’s about finding ways to avoid pain and making the most of your existence in this world because you’re gonna have a short shelf life and then you‘re done for good.

This is a fascinating history of how one piece of exceptional writing changed the world.(less)

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Jul 23, 2012 Jeffrey Keeten rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jeffrey by: Richard Derus

"When we say...that pleasure is the end and aim of life, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; i...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reading-through-history, 2011, particularly-drunk-reviews

Usually five stars is my rating for a classic I read that was everything I hoped it would be. Nonfiction only gets five stars if it's very special. Once or twice a year. This book is great.

It's a microhistory; that's a book that takes a little niche in history, and generally uses that niche to jump around and explore a bunch of different eras through a specific lens. Salt is a great example, although not a great book. This book uses Lucretius' 50 BCE The Nature of Things as its lens, and it jump...more Usually five stars is my rating for a classic I read that was everything I hoped it would be. Nonfiction only gets five stars if it's very special. Once or twice a year. This book is great.

It's a microhistory; that's a book that takes a little niche in history, and generally uses that niche to jump around and explore a bunch of different eras through a specific lens. Salt is a great example, although not a great book. This book uses Lucretius' 50 BCE The Nature of Things as its lens, and it jumps from Roman times to the Renaissance.

Microhistories can be dangerous; at their worst, they're pointless collections of trivia. But at their best, they tie history together in a nice way. I think they're better if you're got a fair handle on history already, so that the threads these books pick up on are ones you're familiar with. It helps you decide whether you think the author's trying too hard, and it's also just really fun to see the book reference something you already know something about. In Swerve, for example, Greenblatt briefly points out how Giordano Bruno was influenced by Lucretius. I read a book about that dude once, so it's neat to just get the reference, plus I'm confident that the connection is valid. (Both had somehow come to the conclusion that if there's our world, there are probably others, and some of them probably also contain life. Milton figured it out too.)

Greenblatt manages to really bring out the excitement in what's a tremendously important and smart work, but also a difficult one to penetrate. Nature of Things is one of the weirdest epic poems I've ever read. It's a proto-atheist work, so it's important to me, and Greenblatt gave me a way into it; without his context, explanation and enthusiasm, it would have been much harder for me to understand what Lucretius was banging on about.

If one judges a book, particularly a nonfiction one, by the number of marks one's made in it, this is a five-star book. And I do, so it is. Swerve brings what it offers.(less)

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Sep 17, 2012 Kat Lowe rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical, political-philosophy

This book exemplifies why I read to grow (and a great big thank you to Richard for writing the review that lifted this book onto my radar screen)...

No, I don't mean that I agree with every conclusion expressed in this work. But to paraphrase a comment that has been reworked many times over the years, "If we agree on everything, then talking together is a waste of our time."

Let's start with the title: The Swerve. IMO, that perfectly describes the writing style of the author. Greenblatt swerves ba...more This book exemplifies why I read to grow (and a great big thank you to Richard for writing the review that lifted this book onto my radar screen)...

No, I don't mean that I agree with every conclusion expressed in this work. But to paraphrase a comment that has been reworked many times over the years, "If we agree on everything, then talking together is a waste of our time."

Let's start with the title: The Swerve. IMO, that perfectly describes the writing style of the author. Greenblatt swerves back and forth between eras, like a cabbie dodging Jay-walking pedestrians.

But that is not how mankind moves. Mankind is a high inertia beastie, like all populations in nature. Our net-perceptions swing like an oscillating pendulum, because (sadly) we need to be bopped on the head to realize that we have allowed the world to swing too far in some direction.

So (in physics speak) what degree-of-freedom swung too far and caused the Renaissance? IMO, it's the same one that always triggers change: too much repression by the establishment. During the Middle Ages, the establishment primarily consisted of the nobles and religious leaders. Thank goodness for people like da Vinci, Shakespeare and Galileo. Hope mankind never runs out of free thinkers to help kick the pendulum in a new direction whenever it gets out of whack.

OK. Logical desires have been satisfied. Time to release the brain-kraken: Stephen, you (like all humans) are biased. Your work says that we should believe the words of people with humanist desires, but you assert (and give plentiful supporting evidence) that religious folks of the pre-Renaissance era were hypocritical liars who focused on a bizarro universe where suffering was super fun. I respectfully suggest that, just because you did not give space on the page to all the religious folks who were living less extremist lives, does not mean that they did not exist.

Since we can only live in our own time, IMO, the best we can do is to observe the current pendulums of mankind. When they swing too far out of line, an unacceptable number of our fellows will need assistance. And that state will hopefully tap a sufficient number of us on the shoulder to take corrective action.

But not at the expense of others, not even the rich. Just my opinion, but 30% should be the maximum that we ever might be willing to steal (tax away) from anybody. If government should wish to create deductions for giving money to a state approved group of charitable organizations, then let the people speak. But I do not like my government to tell me what constitutes a 'worthy' cause. So like many others, I intend to carry on assisting whatever group or individual that I choose.

End of rant.

P.S. Thanks for the intellectual fodder, Mr. Greenblatt.(less)

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Nov 05, 2012 Chance Maree rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, non-fiction, historical

The Swerve is a romantic tale of a book lover, but it is so much more. True--it's a tale of passion and sacrifice, but also of fanaticism and philosophical determination. The war of beliefs that rages today is not new, but is merely a continuation of fear versus reason, and belief versus logic. The violence we see between ourselves stem from the same ignorance and hatred, fear and exercise of domination. Heretics who believed in atoms and the end of the soul were burned at the stake, after tortu...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Robert Pannell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt reconstructs history by showing the reader the reciprocal effect history and literature has on each other. Greenblatt re-imagines a time when human civilization was emerging from the darkness by reaching back to the past and uncovering the creation of the Renaissance and the Humanist’s movement. What Greenblatt initially reveals is the beginning of the Early Modern Period throug...more Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt reconstructs history by showing the reader the reciprocal effect history and literature has on each other. Greenblatt re-imagines a time when human civilization was emerging from the darkness by reaching back to the past and uncovering the creation of the Renaissance and the Humanist’s movement. What Greenblatt initially reveals is the beginning of the Early Modern Period through ancient text. This book strikes a chord for book lovers, scholars; classicist, early modernist, and even modern scholars. It conjures up a late medieval romance of digging through monasteries and hidden chambers of West’s past. This book works as a retelling of an archeological process illuminating a story that has shaped the way our modern minds think. The struggle of a secular society versus a religious society. It explores atheism, Christianity, Paganism. Blending per-Christian ideas with a dominating Roman Catholic imperialism of the fifteenth century.

It certainly has been a while since I have picked up a nonfiction book. However, while I do a lot of focused scholarly writing, I also spend a good amount of time reading essays and scholarly criticism; never had I set down to read a complete nonfiction piece in the past year of the magnitude. I have read Greenblatt’s Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare. It was a great read and much praise to Greenblatt’s achievement and skills at recreating history for his readers.

The big argument I feel that comes up with most of Greenblatt's work his is use of hedging and the use of possible—I thoroughly enjoy this style. Certainty for a history enthusiast they would question his development; I feel the work Greenblatt creates revives historical events and opens the past’s door for more scholarly inquires. With this form of Cultural Poetics an author can unravel the past, plus point out the untouched specks that have been brushed aside throughout history.

My initial reaction to The Swerve was the involvement the book demands. The book, opens with a great story of a book hunter and immediately the reader is transported back in time. This book achieves its goal of Greenblatt’s ever expanding world of Cultural Poetics. He creates a world that is non linear, and unravels the cause and effect approach to history. He allows the reader to enter the minds of the great scholars of the past. Most importantly, Greenblatt makes you—me—want to go book hunting. I recently went to a local used book store a couple of weeks ago and ran across a Penguin Classics version of Lucretius’ On the Nature of the Universe and immediately picked it up. Of course I haven’t fallen into to it yet but it certainly is on my list.
Initially, great scholarship makes you want to go back and read the works it criticizes and illuminates; The Swerve does just that.

There are few flaws as I will give this a five star rating. One flaw—I'm surely in no position to point out flaws in Greenblatt's work—he does leave a lot to be desired from a classical scholars point of view. Yes, it does make a classical scholar happy to know that one of theirs is responsible for the way we think today, but it does fall short in the department of really proving that and that might be case and point to read Lucretius in the first place. However, lovers of Classical Latin will enjoy the discussion and the amazing ability of the Early Modern Period's ways of text preservation. This books has something for every type of literary scholar and even any type of scholar in general. Great Author, Great Book.

Exerts:
"Humans, Aristotle wrote, are social animals: to realize one's nature as a human then was to participate in a group activity. And the activity of choice, for cultivated Romans, as for the Greeks before them, was discourse" (69). Greenblatt accentuates for the reader the connection of human interest—one being discourse. So when we think about the past or even the future, humans are always involved in a conversation either in the present or in the past whether we like it or not; we are always acting and reacting to what has come before in order to reveal what will come in the future.

"One simple name for the plague that Lucretius brought—a charge frequently leveled against him, when his poem began once again to be read—is atheism. But Lucretius was not in fact an atheist. He believed that the gods existed. But he also believed that, by virtue of being gods, they could not possibly be connected with human beings or with anything we do" (183). There are many moments throughout this book that give prominence to the lifestyle of past philosophers in conjunction with the Roman Catholic Church of the Renaissance while juxtaposing both of these worlds vividly. Greenblatt shows the contrast between the two worlds of thought and struggle which was contained in the power of words.

This Review can also be viewed at http://rjp3common.blogspot.com/
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Dec 16, 2011 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ancient-greece, ancient-rome, history, italy, non-fiction, big-ideas, favorites

Fascinating. A manuscript copy of a poem by the ancient Roman author Lucretius is discovered in a 15th-century German monastery by the personal secretary of a disgraced and deposed pope. The man’s name is Poggio Basciolini and he is unusual for his time: driven by curiosity, when curiosity is not considered a virtue but a vice, fascinated with the ideas of ancient and pagan Greece and Rome, a dangerous hobby in Poggio’s time, heretical even. Lucretius’s poem, On the Nature of Things, is striking...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Clif Hostetler rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This is a book about the philosophical epic poem De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things") by Lucretius, written circa first century BC. It tells of its loss in Medieval times and later rediscovery during the Renaissance.

The title, The Swerve, is used (in translation) by Lucretius to describe the unpredictable movements by which particles collide and take on new forms. The rediscovery of Lucretius, it is suggested, was a kind of "swerve" which helped to create the new cultural forms of the Re...more This is a book about the philosophical epic poem De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things") by Lucretius, written circa first century BC. It tells of its loss in Medieval times and later rediscovery during the Renaissance.

The title, The Swerve, is used (in translation) by Lucretius to describe the unpredictable movements by which particles collide and take on new forms. The rediscovery of Lucretius, it is suggested, was a kind of "swerve" which helped to create the new cultural forms of the Renaissance. The subtitle of "how the World Became Modern" is a bit of an overstatement, but this book does illuminate an interesting moment of cultural significance and provide a summary review of the history of books. It's interesting to note that the British publication of this book had a different subtitle, "How the Renaissance Began" which is just as much an overstatement and raises the question, "Why do the Brits get a different title?"

I have my own interpretation of a second meaning for the title of this book. The title The Swerve brings to my mind the shift in cultural prestige that took place with the coming of the Enlightenment era when the most respected intellectuals became those who questioned perceived wisdom instead of those who meditated on revealed wisdom. The leading thinkers of the first century BC (when Lucretius lived) valued asking questions in the spirit of Greek philosophy. After the rise of Christianity and fall of the western part of the Roman Empire the leading thinkers changed to those who elaborated on the meanings of revealed truth contained in scripture. The coming of the Renaissance and Enlightenment constituted a "swerve" back to the intellectual direction of Lucretius' time.

The story told by this book begins with Poggio Bracciolini visiting at a monastery in central Germany – almost certainly the Benedictine abbey of Fulda - searching for old manuscripts. What he found was a ninth-century manuscript copy containing the entire 7,400-line text of De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things") by Lucretius. This extraordinary philosophical epic poem, composed in Rome around the middle of the first century BC, was in 1417 known only by references by other authors. Distant hints of its initial impact could be heard in a letter of Cicero's of 54 BC, which spoke of its "brilliant genius"; in Ovid's commendation of "the sublime Lucretius"; and in Virgil's lines from the Georgics, "Blessed is he who has succeeded in finding out the causes of things, and has trampled underfoot all fears."

At the time of its discovery and for many years later it was the only known copy of the epic poem. Over the years a few other copies (or fragments) have been discovered, so it wasn't the sole surviving copy as it turned out. The copy found in Germany by Poggio and the copy made for him by a German scribe no longer survived today. But the beautiful transcript made back in Italy by his friend Niccolò de' Niccoli survives today. It is probably no accident that so few copies of "On the Nature of Things" survived the Medieval era. The epic poem by Lucretius espoused ways of thinking that early Medieval church leaders found threatening to their cause.

The history covered by this book includes; (1) The contrast between Roman intellectual thinking and the relatively coarse Latin contained in Christian codexes, (2) The history and fate of ancient Greek and Roman public libraries including the famous library at Alexandria, Egypt, (3) The preoccupation of some of the famous early Christian leaders with suffering which contrasted with Epicurean philosophy, (4) The career of Poggio Bracciolini within the environment of endemic corruption of the Roman Catholic Church (it was the era of three Popes), (5) A summary description of the contents of De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things") by Lucretius, and (6) the history of how later writers and thinkers of the Renaissance and Enlightenment responded to the long poem by Lucretius.

The quotations from "On the Nature of Things" contained in this book are surprising close to an accurate description of theories of atoms and natural selection. Of course Lucretius is speaking as a philosopher and not from observations of scientific discovery. Nevertheless, they sound surprisingly modern.

One little bit of trivia that I learned from this book was contained in the discussion of Thomas More's book, Utopia. More's description of Utopia included capital punishment for those who didn't believe in God and the afterlife. In other words, Moore couldn't imagine people living in peace without the fear of punishment after death for bad behavior. The fear of execution in this life was replaced by fear of hell in the afterlife. The word "utopia" will never be the same for me.
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May 04, 2012 Jim Leffert rated it 3 of 5 stars

Greenblatt takes us back to 15th century Europe, and especially, Italy, for a case study in how the pietistic ethos of the Middle Ages happened to morph into the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance. A key turning point, Greenblatt argues, was when Poggio Bracciolini, a newly unemployed high level Vatican bureaucrat, uncovered a manuscript—a copy of a copy of a copy made by monks—of a 1500 year old philosophical poem, Lucretius’s On The Nature of Things, on the dusty shelves of a German monaster...more Greenblatt takes us back to 15th century Europe, and especially, Italy, for a case study in how the pietistic ethos of the Middle Ages happened to morph into the humanistic spirit of the Renaissance. A key turning point, Greenblatt argues, was when Poggio Bracciolini, a newly unemployed high level Vatican bureaucrat, uncovered a manuscript—a copy of a copy of a copy made by monks—of a 1500 year old philosophical poem, Lucretius’s On The Nature of Things, on the dusty shelves of a German monastery library.

Poggio, as we come to know him, was one of a group of Humanists, that is, people who looked back to classical antiquity as the source of valuable philosophy, wisdom, and art. The Humanists made it their business to search out this material and share it with others. Lucretius’s poem, On The Nature of Things, presents Epicurianism, the thought of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, in highly poetic Latin. Among other things, Epicurus taught that the gods are indifferent to what goes on here on earth, and that everything is made up of atoms: earth, man, and heavenly bodies alike. He also taught that major changes occur not because of divine intervention but rather because the atomic material, interacting over time, simply “swerves”. When the Roman Empire turned Christian, the authorities viewed this pagan philosophy as subversive and suppressed it. (Jewish authorities were equally down on it; to this day, the Hebrew and Yiddish word for freethinker is “Apikoros”.)

I found Greenblatt’s description of how the content of Lucretius’s poem influenced the Renaissance world view and found its way into the work of people such as Botticelli, Montaigne, Thomas More, and Shakespeare to be possibly tendentious and wearying at times. Furthermore, Greenblatt’s habit of meandering from his main point to offer interesting tidbits from his primary sources may annoy some readers. Also, surprisingly, little of Lucretius’s poem is excerpted in the book.

However, I was captivated by the sharply etched portrait of Poggio and his contemporaries as they engaged in their passionate intellectual pursuits, often within the precincts of the Vatican, and also by the inside story of how the Church operated in the 14th and 15th century. The Church was a hotbed of corruption, immorality, and power politics. No wonder that the Protestant Reformation eventually occurred!

It was also surprising to discover that in its early decades, the Church did not consider Humanism to be a dangerous threat. High officials, including one Pope, were among its proponents. Greenblatt suggests that it was only when pagan philosophy made the leap from the humanities to science (e.g., Giordano Bruno and Galileo) that it became a threat. A bonus: If you want to know more about John Hus and Giordano Bruno and to learn why each one met a grisly end, this could be your book!
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Feb 07, 2012 Joe Adelizzi rated it 4 of 5 stars

I didn't intend to allow so much time to pass between finishing Stephen Greenblatt's book The Swerve and writing this short review, but I got caught up in the holidays, which came and went, as well as in another book high on my “to read” list. Many of the details have begun to fade, but maybe that fading is a good thing, something akin to a literary natural selection or survival of the fittest – maybe these persistent details are significant precisely because of their more indelible characterist...more I didn't intend to allow so much time to pass between finishing Stephen Greenblatt's book The Swerve and writing this short review, but I got caught up in the holidays, which came and went, as well as in another book high on my “to read” list. Many of the details have begun to fade, but maybe that fading is a good thing, something akin to a literary natural selection or survival of the fittest – maybe these persistent details are significant precisely because of their more indelible characteristics. Or maybe I'm just focusing on things which have significance only for me.

I immediately rated the book rather highly – four stars. I'll stick with that rating, but thinking about the book since finishing it I now get the feeling Mr. Greenblatt has hyped the significance of the rediscovery by Poggio Bracciolini of Lucretius' On the Nature of Things. Don't get me wrong – I love Lucretius' work, and I enjoyed reading about its rediscovery and about Poggio. But a “swerve” that made the world modern? I'm not so sure. That said, what I am finding most indelible from the book are several aspects of Poggio's life.

First there is his work as a scriptor wherein he records the words of others. His success as a scriptor eventually led him to become apostolic secretary to Pope John XXIII, a Pope for whom he seemed to hold little, if any, respect.

Then there is his affinity for the ancients over those of his day. On several occasions he espouses the supremacy of ancient times. Of course given what he saw around him – the fall of Pope John XXIII and the execution of John Hus, for instance – I'd be hard-pressed to argue with him.

This affinity leads him to search out lost works of the ancients, whereupon he quickly and beautifully copies them to make them more widely available. His handwriting was in fact very beautiful, machine-like in its precision, artistic in its flow, a tribute in itself to the works he was copying. But again he is copying the words of others.

The most indelible detail of Poggio's life is how he had 12 children with his girlfriend before marrying someone else – someone well-connected – and completely abandoning his girlfriend and children. His marriage seems to have been a somewhat happy one as he remained married and had five children with his wife. However, that life choice is as about as indelible a detail as I think I'll ever read.

So, much of Poggio's life was spent giving life to other people's words, other people's works of art, other people's era. Consequently, it seems very fitting to me that his tribute statue was eventually removed from its original location and ended up serving as an unnamed, unknown stand-in for one of the apostles in a larger sculptural piece. In the end – and weeks on from finishing the book - these incidents leave me wondering more on the nature of Poggio than On the Nature of Things, its rediscovery, and even its impact and significance.

Now I'll get back to my “To Read” selection – an excellent biography about yet another long-dead author unparalleled in our time. Perhaps I'll be able to do some quote-harvesting from his work so as to appear clever on FaceBook! But first I'll check out the latest news on the deteriorating condition of the ruins at Pompeii, my favorite city in the world
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Oct 23, 2011 Mitchell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, political, philosophy, public-library

By the time this book came off of hold, I had forgotten what it was about. But it was easy to figure it out. I think it was NPR that had done a piece on this magical ancient poem, lost for hundreds of years - resurfaced by the work of a rabid book searcher - which basically described such modern ideas as atoms, evolution, atheism, and no life of any sort after death - Lucretius' On the Nature of Things. And yet mostly I found this book a bore. And with two copies of On the Nature of Things in th...more

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Apr 06, 2012 Seamus Thompson rated it 3 of 5 stars

More like 3.5 stars. This is a broad history with a specific moment at its core: the moment that Poggio Bracciolini, an early renaissance scholar and bookhunter, found a copy of Lucretius' epic poem The Nature of Things. Lucretius argues that the world was made of atoms, that the Gods were so distant they played no real roles in our lives, that the only way for people to achieve happiness is to abandon superstition and seek a life of pleasure without thoughts of a non-existent afterlife, etc. Lu...more

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May 15, 2013 Margot rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Highly engaging account of the people who preserved and rediscovered the classical texts of Greek & Roman antiquity. However, there's little evidence that the poem by Lucretius written ca. 50 BC and rediscovered by Poggio Bracciolini in the early 15th C. was *responsible* for the great shifts in thought associated with the Renaissance, as Greenblatt repeatedly claims. Nor is it ever clear why exactly the theory of atoms is inherently tied to the Epicurean belief that the gods are indifferent...more

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May 14, 2013 Juanita rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is like a rich fruit cake, chock full of goodies. It's a great book for those who love the details of history. Alas I, am not one who loves rich cakes with candied fruit. Even so, I am a reader who loves discovery and the evolution of ideas. I also appreciate a well researched and well written book and this is one. What I liked best was how the author used a "hero", one Poggio Bracciolini, to lead the reader from the discovery of a book in 15th-century Europe, through the centuries, tr...more

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May 12, 2013 Leon rated it 2 of 5 stars

Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-FictionWinner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-FictionOne 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 ma

...more

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May 06, 2013 Qbeam rated it 2 of 5 stars

Others who were disappointed by this book can express the reasons far better than I could. If you have no experience with the ancient philosophers, you might find this interesting. If you have a mild interest in medieval or Renaissance history you may find this book interesting. Although, your interest would be better served by an actual historian. I give it 2 stars because I am soft and love the classical world and those individuals throughout history who have derived inspiration from the class...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Joy H. marked it as keep-in-mind

Shelves: non-fiction, history, religion, philosophy, physics

Added 4/23/13.
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (first published 2011)

Literary awards:
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (2012)
National Book Award for Nonfiction (2011)

I first heard about this book while listening to NPR radio on 4/23/13. What attracted me was the poem read by Lucretius who seemed to be considering the ideas of Darwin's theory even before Darwin lived!

Lucretius’ two-thousand-year-old poem is entitled: “On the Nature of Things” ("De Rerum Natura")...more

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Apr 16, 2013 Dale rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, nonfiction

This is a fascinating story about the search for ancient texts during the early renaissance and about Poggio Bracciolini, the papal secretary who located the last remaining copy of Lucretius' The Nature of Things. The church played a dual role as preserver and destroyer of texts from the ancient world - painstakingly copying and recopying on the one hand, and actively suppressing certain works and authors on the other. Lucretius and other epicureans were special targets for suppression since the...more

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Apr 13, 2013 Adam Ford rated it 4 of 5 stars

On my trip with the kids down to Vegas for the last part of Spring Break I listened to The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. I was able to finish it before we arrived back home.

What an amazingly interesting book. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2012 and the 2011 National Book Award for Nonfiction. (Yes one prize hyphenates and one doesn’t.)

Poggio Bracciolini, a temporarily unemployed Papal clerk in the 15th Century, hunts down a thought-to-be-lost manuscript of the Roman...more On my trip with the kids down to Vegas for the last part of Spring Break I listened to The Swerve: How the World Became Modern. I was able to finish it before we arrived back home.

What an amazingly interesting book. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 2012 and the 2011 National Book Award for Nonfiction. (Yes one prize hyphenates and one doesn’t.)

Poggio Bracciolini, a temporarily unemployed Papal clerk in the 15th Century, hunts down a thought-to-be-lost manuscript of the Roman poet Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things from an out-of-the-way German monastery. Lucretius was a follower of Epicurean philosophy, founded by Epicurus in about 300 BCE. None of Epicurus’ writings survive and his philosophy has been largely forgotten by the world until Bracciolini’s discovery of Lucretius in the German Alps. Lucretius’ Latin is so beautiful and his verse so wonderful that it became a standard text when teaching the subject in the centuries that followed.

Epicurean philosophy is based in the idea that everything is made out of Atoms (they got that one right!), there was only Atom and void. The goal of the philosophy is to seek and find happiness. It teaches that happiness is found in (i) a state of inner tranquility--the freedom from fear, and (ii) the absence of bodily pain. It is not hedonism in that it teaches that this state can be reached through living a simple life.

“The Swerve” is the natural phenomenon of atoms moving randomly in nature. This physical movement is what gives man and animals their agency. When Epicurus used his agency to come up with the ideas, Lucretius used agency to write down the masterful explanatory poem, Bracciloini chose to seek out the missing ancient book, Galileo, Freud, Darwin and Einstein all read the book and were influenced greatly by it. The masses were stirred to Renaissance and Enlightenment and the world became modern.

Thomas Jefferson owned 5 copies of Lucretius and described himself as an Epicurean. This is the reason he inserted the entitlement to the right of “the pursuit of happiness” to the Declaration of Independence—a clear reference to Epicureanism.

I have traditionally been more drawn to Stoicism, but this book made me want to read Lucretius. Anyone have a favorite translation?--my Latin is terrible.

The book made the miles fly by. Nephi, Fillmore, Beaver, Cedar City, St. George, Mesquite all passed in a blur while I explored the Medieval Alpine monasteries with the Apostolicus Secretarius, sat in the discussions at the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum, and listened in at the Garden of Epicurus himself in ancient Athens. Quite a drive.

For those concerned with child abuse, I wore headphones and the kids watched a movie and played on the DSs. A happy compromise for all. (less)

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Apr 04, 2013 Kristine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, pulitzer

Non-fiction winner: 2012 Pulitzer and 2011 National Book Award

THE SWERVE by Stephen Greenblatt contextualizes the life of the Italian Poggio Bracciolini (1380 – 1459) and highlights the implications of his rediscovery of a forgotten first century BCE work by the Roman poet/philosopher Lucretius called ON THE NATURE OF THINGS.

My simplest advice for better appreciating THE SWERVE: forget the subtitle.

Expecting the focus to be explicitly on "how the world became modern" seems misleading when t...more

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Apr 04, 2013 MacK rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, classics

Few things have struck me as thoroughly this year as this line from the book The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt: There are moments, rare and powerful, in which a writer long vanished from the face of the earth, seems to stand in your presence and speak to you directly, as if he bore a message meant for you above all others (p. 247).

Greenblatt is right of course, and in telling the story of Roman poet Titus Lucretius’ classic De rerum natura (On the Nature Things) he spins the tale of a long dead...more Few things have struck me as thoroughly this year as this line from the book The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt: There are moments, rare and powerful, in which a writer long vanished from the face of the earth, seems to stand in your presence and speak to you directly, as if he bore a message meant for you above all others (p. 247).

Greenblatt is right of course, and in telling the story of Roman poet Titus Lucretius’ classic De rerum natura (On the Nature Things) he spins the tale of a long dead writer who seemed to have that effect on an entire generation of minds. From Montaigne to Shakespeare and all manner of other Renaissance intellects, this Latin poem captures a new way to see the world: where seeking pleasure is a virtue, the Gods are irrelevant, and mankind charts their own course through the world. Naturally, this challenge to the established order of the middle ages (and the church that dominated it) led to conflict–even though it was an agent of the church who brought the book back into prominence.

Throughout his writing, Greenblatt guides readers into this conflict by encapsulating a horde of complex ideas, philosophies and historical factoids. My father and father-in-law were both captivated by the men who found the book and re-introduced it to the world. Unfortunately, since I had taken a two-year long college course chronicling the connections between Lucretius’ philosophy, the Catholic church’s obstinacy, Shakespeare’s poetry and all the other writers from generations long gone, I couldn’t get past the feeling that I had already read the book’s spoilers. While the book might be more engrossing for those who are new to the lineage of great literature, there’s still something appealing for everyone.

The context that helped Lucretius’ ideas to thrive are here again now: a corrupt church bureaucracy, accusations that self-seeking pleasure has loosened morals around the world, an increasingly secular society. But the real power of ideas isn’t what they are, the real power is that the ideas can matter to anyone and everyone. Reading the ideas of Lucretius, or Greenblatt, or any religious prophet can benefit you and your society. Encountering ideas on your own offers the opportunity to improve your life and the lives of others. It’s all a matter of how you use those ideas.(less)

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Mar 30, 2013 Howard Cincotta rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, history-biography

The heroes of this book are the ancient Roman poet and thinker Lucretius, and the Renaissance scholar and book hunter Poggio Bracciolini, who plucked out – and thereby salvaged for history – Lucretius’s brilliant and subversive poem On the Nature of Things, previously lost for thousands of years. Greenblatt tells the wonderful story of the poem’s discovery in a monastery library, and of Bracciolini’s life and contributions, literally, to the “rebirth” of learning that gave the Renaissance era it...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Zach rated it 3 of 5 stars

The focus of "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern" is compelling. Before starting the book, the summary gives the reader the impression that he or she is about to read a thesis into how society's early thinkers set the foundation for the modern world. The author, Stephen Greenblatt, focuses particularly on a chance discovery of the ancient book "De rerum natura" (On the Nature of Things) by Lucretius, a Roman philosopher. An intriguing concept, but I felt the subtitle and summary were not an...more The focus of "The Swerve: How the World Became Modern" is compelling. Before starting the book, the summary gives the reader the impression that he or she is about to read a thesis into how society's early thinkers set the foundation for the modern world. The author, Stephen Greenblatt, focuses particularly on a chance discovery of the ancient book "De rerum natura" (On the Nature of Things) by Lucretius, a Roman philosopher. An intriguing concept, but I felt the subtitle and summary were not an accurate representation of the book. The main focus of this book is actually on Poggio Bracciolini, the 15th-century scholar and book hunter who rediscovered Lucretius's book. So instead of reading a book on "How the World Became Modern," we get a book that would be more aptly named "Poggio: A Life."

The actual analysis into how "De rerum natura" created a paradigm shift for posterity is only the focus of the final two chapters, and even then, the evidence that this literature was as important as Mr. Greenblatt claims is thin. He even writes the following disclaimer in the first chapter: "One poem by itself was certainly not responsible for an entire intellectual, moral, and social transformation--no single work was, let alone one that for centuries could not without danger be spoken about freely in public. But this particular ancient book, suddenly returning to view, made a difference." This vague statement that the text "made a difference" can be said for any scholarly work since antiquity, and immediately arose doubt as to whether "De rerum natura" was really as revolutionary as the author makes it out to be.

For a book that won both the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the National Book Award for Nonfiction, I would've expected something more. However, the book is substantive, thought-provoking, and quite readable considering the subject matter. If you don't mind learning a bit more about Poggio than you probably cared to know, then you may find this book interesting and will definitely get something out of it. (less)

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Mar 16, 2013 Lou Schuler rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history

Publishing is my life's work, but until I read The Swerve, I didn't really know much about its early history.

I'd recommend it for that alone. But it's also a detailed history of the Catholic Church on the cusp of the Enlightenment. I knew that history in broad strokes, but this is the first time I got a sense of how the bureaucracy functioned, and how its critics got away with expressing their concerns without burning at the stake.

Nobody reading The Swerve would be shocked by the recent news fr...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Lindsey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Though it's taking me forever to read, Greenblatt's book and ideas stick in my head more than most non-fiction books, and it's one I keep wanting to go back to and re-read and read more. It's a fascinating tale of humanity--how advanced we were as a civilization during the time of the Alexandria library and how far back extreme Christianity killed (too often literally) hundreds of years of progress and put us smack into the dark ages. The story of how a few radical Christians took Hypatia, a wel...more

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Feb 17, 2013 Brian Bess rated it 4 of 5 stars

The discovery that swerved the world into modernism
Stephen Greenblatt’s ‘The Swerve’ is built upon a fascinating premise and, for over half of its length, it weaves a historical detective story that incorporates threads from the origins of libraries, the value of penmanship, the means by which books were copied and distributed and many others in a tapestry that propels the reader toward the finish line. Unfortunately, the book loses much of its steam after the tale of the discovery and the fate...more The discovery that swerved the world into modernism
Stephen Greenblatt’s ‘The Swerve’ is built upon a fascinating premise and, for over half of its length, it weaves a historical detective story that incorporates threads from the origins of libraries, the value of penmanship, the means by which books were copied and distributed and many others in a tapestry that propels the reader toward the finish line. Unfortunately, the book loses much of its steam after the tale of the discovery and the fate of the discoverer is effectively ended.

Poggio Bracciolini was a fascinating character taken on his own merits as depicted by Greenblatt. A lowly scribe from rural Italian origins that rose to prominence as papal secretary only to descend into direr straits of unemployment and financial hardship in the wake of his deposed employer, Poggio rose once again late in life and eventually achieved some degree of domestic, financial and professional security. He was a shrewd closeted humanist book hunter in a rabidly dogmatic Christian theocracy and he had to move very carefully to avoid the appearance of biting the hand that fed him. His own saga could potentially become the stuff of compelling cinema.

In the 1400’s, book hunters were archaeologists, uncovering clues to a past through rumors of remnants that were the only signs that certain notable philosophers of Roman and Greek antiquity ever existed. His major discovery was a copy of the philosophical poem “On the Nature of Things” by Roman philosopher Lucretius. The poem depicts an atomistic view of the universe. Everyone and everything is composed of these atoms. There is no intelligent design and if these constantly moving atoms were to proceed in straight forward motion nothing would ever exist or change. However, the atoms yield to a slight swerve, resulting in collision with other atoms and a chain reaction of causes and effects. Viewed from the 21st century in a post-Einstein world in which theories of quantum physics are tossed about daily this does not seem terribly revolutionary. However, in a world ruled by the Vatican this is highly blasphemous bile and the tale of how Lucretius’ work found its way out of obscurity into the light of day through a series of historical ‘swerves’ is where Greenblatt’s tale possesses its greatest power.

While one is caught in the narrative tide of Greenblatt’s tale, what he says is entirely convincing. Upon reflection after finishing, however, I for one detect oversimplification for the sake of a compelling story. I don’t doubt that “On the Nature of Things” has exerted influence on many throughout history, themselves significant figures (Shakespeare, Montaigne, Galileo, Jefferson, Darwin, Einstein). However, I think it a bit of a stretch to claim that this one work started a chain reaction of thought that transformed Western Civilization from a world of blind adherents to a superstitious Christian theocracy to a society of free thinking humanists. It would be more accurate to say that it was one of many texts that slowly insinuated themselves into the fiber of minds that couldn’t help but question the most obvious absurdities of Christian theology in spite of the compulsion to ‘’toe the party line.’

Greenblatt’s book is not a tremendously long tome. It would be even shorter if he had concluded it after he finished Poggio’s tale and his description of what Poggio actually discovered. However, he has structured his book like a ghost story in which a family legend unfolds as a curse is passed from one occupant to the next of the haunted mansion. In this way, he overstates his case. “On the Nature of Things” has a life of its own and it will not be extinguished by any papal authority or fundamentalist censor, according to Greenblatt. I suppose that the fact that Greenblatt’s book resided on the New York Times bestseller list and won a Pulitzer Prize could be taken as evidence that Lucretius’ poem DOES have a life of its own, at least the life that Greenblatt has given it by shining his scholar’s flashlight upon it.

(less)

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Feb 15, 2013 Sean rated it 5 of 5 stars

We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another. -Lucretius

I finally finished listening to The Swerve and it sang to the last drop. It is truly a wonderful work of scholarship. What is astonishing is that he uses Lucretius' On the Nature of Things as a kind of window and metaphorical hinge to demonstrate the real difference between the perceptions of the ancient world and those of the modern age. That there is such a perfect example is, perhaps, no accid...more We are each of us angels with only one wing, and we can only fly by embracing one another. -Lucretius

I finally finished listening to The Swerve and it sang to the last drop. It is truly a wonderful work of scholarship. What is astonishing is that he uses Lucretius' On the Nature of Things as a kind of window and metaphorical hinge to demonstrate the real difference between the perceptions of the ancient world and those of the modern age. That there is such a perfect example is, perhaps, no accident.

My beef with western philosophy, as hijacked by materialists posing as metaphysicians, is that causality is simply reduced to a random aggregate of things that just happen--much as proposed by Lucretius. (I have been railing against this deconstruction of causality for forty years.) Within the group that espouses this view are those who, at the far left end, simply don't believe in any sort of order at all in the universe except a vast, hidden lexicon of attraction and repulsion that has resulted in the largely, illusionary world that we know.

At the higher end of this point of view, there are those who believe in an implicit or implicate order (per Bohm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicat...) built into matter based on the same rules of repulsion and attraction--just more complex and many layered--but still largely based on random aggregation with a kind of pooled multi-dimensionality. (This is where I derived some of my ideas for cyber-kinetics or the multi-dimensional movements that have also been described in String Theory. Cyber-Kinesis, as described in my book, How to Manage Your D.I.C.K. is the metaphysical analog to superstrings.) Bohm, I suspect, was closeted believer in causality and probably got as close to the truth, in my opinion, as any physicist did in the last century. You can see him having to couch his language very carefully in terms acceptable to the reactionary fringe of his own discipline. He would have most likely enjoyed invoking the taboo word "God" more often in his lectures.

I remember reading a doctoral candidates thesis and being astonished that he didn't seem to advert to the fact that he, like a God, had set up the parameters for the various attractions that he was attempting to demonstrate could be facilitated for automatic assembly. In other words, without his demonstrated setup, assembly would have been unlikely to occur in the same manner. You can't create rules and then jump out of the picture and say you didn't make them.

It is quite clear that the universe is not "managed" by God in the sense that Giordano Bruno mocked but by the same token, to see the vast, lit choirs of being, tier upon magnificent tier indicates a prior arrangement that most reasonable people would assume is either order implicit in matter, in a way that we don't understand, or comes from something like what Aristotle claimed was the Unmoved Mover. Between these extreme points of view, which in reality constitutes the real basis for the moral differences between Republicans and Democrats, lies the truth. There is order, there is purpose in the universe but it cannot be conceived in three or four dimensions. In other words: using a morality based on Newtonian style physics will not provide you with enough data to formulate a response to those who believe morality is purely a matter of convention.

Those who believe in causality of the Aristotelian Thomistic blend, for example, cannot believe in abortion or homosexuality as choices that are consonant with nature and causality as it might be commonly understood from that perspective. There are those who would claim that homosexuality illustrates the non-causal nature of reality precisely. I my opinion, preferences, much like the famous accidents of Aristotle are not determinative. In other words, the accident white does not change the nature of man. A man can be white, black or yellow but he is still a man. Homosexuality is an accidental preference in many instances, a moral adaptation or defect in other instances, equivalent materially to a man born without a limb or sight. And like all defects, it must be adapted to. This is why I am tolerant of gays but am intolerant in regards to gay marriage or the promotion of defect as an alternative form of normality. Causally speaking, it is a complete disconnect. Accept the view of Lucretius, as embodied in modern relativism and Rorty style deconstruction, and both gay marriage and abortion are simply subjective rules made up by the mutual attraction and repulsion of matter in our heads--nothing more, nothing less.

Abortion is an abomination--a complete lack of species loyalty. Whether God exists or doesn't it should be avoided like the plague. It telegraphs a terrible message of irresponsibility and meaning to the younger generation. That being said, the fact that nature terminates 30% of all conceptions, naturally, is an indication that there may be some room here for reasonable disagreement in cases of rape, incest and perhaps gross deformity. As a form of birth control for the lazy it is truly repugnant.

One issue that The Swerve indirectly points to is that the nature of God can be construed to be the mirror image of matter. Pie in the sky or pie on earth. God creates Himself--is His own cause, or matter always is, always has been and has not been created--just like God. It is, of course, far easier to deny God's existence, when he is visualized as a bearded schoolmaster given to the adjudication of damnation and salvation based on a moral calculus. It is far more difficult to imagine the God of Lao Tzu.

Absolute denial is, perhaps, as pernicious as absolute affirmation. The way of paradox is far more honorable, in other words, than the simple-minded razor of Occam.(less)

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Feb 13, 2013 W rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well, let's see. Stephen Greenblatt has an abiding bias against Catholics, but who doesn't these days. He shamefully gives the monks short shrift on their love's labor in keeping the literature of the world alive through the dark ages. I think he goes too far in blaming the Christians' anti-intellectualism for the demise (not the burning) of the library in Alexandria. He decidedly errs in painting the Christians as wholly taken with pain and suffering and misuses the Romans as blitheful pleasuri...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Cyndi rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical

I love the period of history where we came out of the Dark Ages and entered into the Enlightenment and then the Renaissance. So many factors went into the discovery of the antiquities that I can't accept the authors premise that Poggio Bracciolini's discovery of a poem entitled On the Nature of Things by Lucretius caused the "swerve" that led us to the Age of Enlightenment. Greenblatt minimizes Petrarch and other humanists contributions. I do accept the premise that small, little things can have...more

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