Download PDF The Swerve: How the World Became Modern By Stephen Greenblatt

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The Swerve: How the World Became Modern-Stephen Greenblatt

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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction • Winner of the National Book Award • New York Times BestsellerRenowned scholar Stephen Greenblatt brings the past to vivid life in what is at once a supreme work of scholarship, a literary page-turner, and a thrilling testament to the power of the written word.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 The Swerve: How the World Became Modern Review :



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.
I felt like the author was trying too hard to show how very well read he is and tried to force a concept that wasn't there. this book does NOT show "how the world became modern." And he name dropped inumerable philosophers and writers who were irrelevant to the discussion (again seemingly to prop up his pedigree.) It was sort of historical fiction and yet sort of non-fiction. There were many pages of notes in the back which I felt he was using to show how well researched his subject was, but yet he made many leaps from fact to assumption of motivation. After I read it and was feeling annoyed I went online to see what others said. A number of academic historians say he has many facts wrong and some also said that he made assumptions that were not accurate and it was not deserving of a Pulitzer. I would have much preferred a historical fiction account of the main character as he searched for old manuscripts (which I found interesting) with some historical facts sprinkled in. I also found his description of religious leaders as very one dimensional.

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