The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began by Stephen Greenblatt

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What a story, what a tale. Of how we, the literate ape, conspire to hide truth from ourselves. And of how the truth will out. 300 years before the birth of Christ, a Greek philosopher, Epicurus, after pondering the nature of things, comes to the conclusion that we, and everything else, are formed of indivisible units, atoms. He lays down the beginnings of the notion of evolution and concludes that while gods might exist, they have no interest in humans who are just one animal among many.

Just after the birth of Christ, a Roman poet, Titus Lucretius Carus, develops these ideas in a an ambitious poem, De Rurum Natura. The Roman Empire crumbles, and Christianity rises, bringing an age of darkness when "atomists" are burnt at the stake. But the church has uses for scribal monks, and they practice by copying old books in Latin. So the heretic text survives …

Lucretius's poem is rediscovered in the 1400s by Florentine intellectual called Poggio. It is set free to influence Galileo, Montaigne, Shakespeare, and usher in the modern world.

This is a must read.



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