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The Swerve How the World Became Modern Stephen Greenblatt 8601423256658 Books

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The Swerve How the World Became Modern Stephen Greenblatt 8601423256658 Books

This is a fabulous piece of popular intellectual history. For those of us who are not professional Historians but are nonetheless interested in how we got where we are, this is wonderful stuff. I was particularly interested in how the Church became obsessed with self-abnegation during the Dark Ages. Explains a lot. I have no idea how to judge if On The Nature Of Things is really as crucial as Greenblatt thinks, but it's a damn good story, regardless. And good stories are very useful.


Tags : The Swerve: How the World Became Modern [Stephen Greenblatt] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <strong>Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction<br /> Winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Non-Fiction</strong> One of the world's most celebrated scholars,Stephen Greenblatt,The Swerve: How the World Became Modern,W. W. Norton & Company,0393064476,9780393064476,Civilization, Modern,Lucretius Carus, Titus,Lucretius Carus, Titus - Influence,Philosophy, Renaissance,Philosophy, Renaissance.,Renaissance,Renaissance.,Science, Renaissance,Science, Renaissance.,ART History Renaissance,European history,GENERAL,General Adult,HISTORY Europe Renaissance,HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE (GENERAL),History,History - General History,HistoryModern - General,HistoryWorld,History: World,InspirationalDevotional,Modern - General,Non-Fiction,PHILOSOPHY History & Surveys General,RENAISSANCE - HISTORY,United States,Western Europe

The Swerve How the World Became Modern Stephen Greenblatt 8601423256658 Books Reviews

Tells the story of the 15th century discovery of a manuscript of a previously unknown classic text, De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) by Lucretius, written in the first century BC. The manuscript was discovered by an Italian, Poggio Bracciolini, who was the chief secretary for several Popes. Much of the book is devoted to Poggio's life. Greenblatt also gives lots of interesting information on early Renaissance Italy when the humanist movement, the recovery of ancient texts, became popular among the intellectual elite. There's also quite a bit of discussion of De Rerum Natura, which was based on the philosophies of Epicurus and Democritus. Greenblatt is a quite enthusiastic adherent to Lucretius's philosophy, but his explanation is just an uncritical summary. Greenblatt is always an entertaining writer, and he has done a lot of research for this book; so all readers will learn a lot. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver on its promise of explaining "How the world became modern." Lucretius is not any more than a footnote to that story.
I was frankly shocked that I found The Swerve so enjoyable! I expected to learn, and I learned a lot. I expected to be left with ideas to think about and form opinions around. Plenty of that here, too. But Greenblatt also writes in a delightful style that verges on poetic at times. At points, there was a lot of background to be displayed before the next set of facts could be understood. Then, the author switches gears to that novel-by-a-poet style to keep my attention. I won't get into the ideas beyond what he calls "how the world became modern," but I will say that a lot more history and even philosophy is on display. Excellent book.
This well-written, well-documented book makes for a fascinating read assuming one has interest in the topic. One begins the book expecting an account of Epicurean/Lucretian doctrine, and one gets some of that, but the book's focus is more the recovery and dissemination of the Lucretian text than its content or even prosody. I happen to have an interest in the process through which Greek and Roman texts were recovered by and made available to the west and so found myself quickly drawn into Greenblatt's wonderfully told detective story. Although I found his synopses of Lucretius's doctrines accurate--one finds them in chapter 8--one has to go to the poem itself--published in a wonderful prose translation by Martin Ferguson Smith but also available in several fine verse translations--to get to the details of the Epicurean view. Greenblatt's book is altogether accessible and will deepen and broaden one's knowledge of the topics it addresses.
This beautiful and informative book by Stephen Greenblatt can be read as three separated but connected books.

First, a thorough biography of the Italian politician and humanist Poggio Braccilioni, who rose from a humble origin to become a papal secretary (a powerbroker in the corrupt XV century Vatican court), and, who, at the same time, driven by a passion for ancient books, uncovered, transcript and recovered the manuscript of On the Nature of Things, a timeless masterpiece written by the Latin poet Lucretius two millennials ago.

Second, a historical study showing how the ideas of Epicurus and other pagan thinkers about the natural word and the centrality of pleasure were replaced and superseded by Christian doctrines about the divine providence and the centrality of suffering. “Life on this earth is all that human beings have,” wrote Epicurus. Christians thought otherwise, insisted in other worlds and (we all know well) brought about much misery. Early Christians portrayed Epicurus as a callous and dangerous hedonist. Sadly, for humanity, Christians sided with suffering. They promoted chastity, self-flagellation, and pleasure avoidance. In the author’s words, “Christianity conjoined divine humiliation and pain with an arrogant triumphalism.”

And third, a story of renaissance, of the revival of a set of classical ideas about life and the natural world, triggered in part by Poggio’s discovery of Lucretius’ masterpiece. On the Nature of Things was cited by Montaigne, mentioned by Shakespeare, and read by Thomas Jefferson, among many other thinkers of the enlightenment. In Greenblatt’s interpretation, Lucretius was also a precursor of Charles Darwin and his unsettling view of the world. “All living beings, from plants and insects to the higher mammals and man, have evolved through a long, complex process of trial and error. The process involves many false starts and dead ends, monsters, prodigies, mistakes, creatures that were not endowed with all the features that they needed to compete for resources and to create offspring.” Lucretius (to use Sean Carroll’s felicitous phrase) represents poetic naturalism at its best, with a caveat he wrote two thousand years ago.

I have only one complain about this book. Greenblatt overplayed the role of Lucretius in helping to unsettle and transform the world. The poem is indeed unsettling. No doubt the idea of human insignificance disturbed the monopoly of the tellers of fables who dominated the Middle ages. Poggio even rejected the main message of On the Nature of Things. But an old manuscript in and of itself doesn’t change the world. Be what it may, we must celebrate the amazing affinity between Lucretius and the main minds of the modern world.
This is a fabulous piece of popular intellectual history. For those of us who are not professional Historians but are nonetheless interested in how we got where we are, this is wonderful stuff. I was particularly interested in how the Church became obsessed with self-abnegation during the Dark Ages. Explains a lot. I have no idea how to judge if On The Nature Of Things is really as crucial as Greenblatt thinks, but it's a damn good story, regardless. And good stories are very useful.