From the Bookshelf of NonFiction Pulitzers…

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Stephen Greenblatt

Start date: May 1, 2025

Finish date: June 30, 2025

Discussion: General NonFiction

Why we're reading this: Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (2012)

Group Read May/June 2025
[close] Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (2012)

Group Read May/June 2025

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 35 topics — 1,791 comments total

General NonFiction

* General Nonfiction List
By Katy · 28 posts · 137 views

last updated May 05, 2020 09:23AM

The Swerve
By Katy · 35 posts · 20 views

last updated Jul 01, 2025 08:44PM

showing 10 of 14 topics view all »

What Members Thought

May 08, 2012 Katy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: history, 2025_pulitzers_nonfiction

2025: Doing a reread. No, I'm not going to reread.

2012:
I would not call this book "riveting" as described on the book jacket -- but it was an interesting read, although it was slow for me. A nice background on some history, but not the best I've read. ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Dec 31, 2013 Arvind Balasundaram rated it liked it · review of another edition

In The Swerve, author Stephen Greenblatt highlights the importance of an ancient Roman poem, On The Nature of Things, by Lucretius, that was serendipitously discovered in a remote monastery by Poggio Bracciolini, a papal secretary, bibliophile, and manuscript copyist in 1417. The wider dispersion of ideas articulated in this work, the author argues, significantly shaped the ideas of the Renaissance and after, and influenced major world thinkers like Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, Montaigne, and even In The Swerve, author Stephen Greenblatt highlights the importance of an ancient Roman poem, On The Nature of Things, by Lucretius, that was serendipitously discovered in a remote monastery by Poggio Bracciolini, a papal secretary, bibliophile, and manuscript copyist in 1417. The wider dispersion of ideas articulated in this work, the author argues, significantly shaped the ideas of the Renaissance and after, and influenced major world thinkers like Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, Montaigne, and even found their way into the American Declaration of Independence, via Thomas Jefferson.
There is a lot of material in the first few chapters that discusses the context in which Lucretius wrote his poem, as well as who Poggio Bracciolini was, and how he chanced upon the Lucretian manuscript after the Pope he was serving, Baldassare Cossa (who took the title, Pope John XXIII) was summarily deposed by a Council in Constance, Germany. However, not all this build-up material is necessary or relevant for the reader to gain a synopsis of the great Renaissance book-hunter being discussed or the ideas that he helped preserve. For example, an entire chapter is devoted to highlight the discovery of a Lucretian papyrus at an Herculaneum villa, where an important library covered in ash by a Vesuvian eruption still managed to preserve the poem. Most of the chapter, however, talks about life in Pompeii and Herculaneum in general, and are not specific to Lucretius or his famous poem. Similarly, there is a whole chapter that digresses into the role of silverfish in the devastation of ancient manuscripts, which interesting as fact, distract from the main premise and intent.
Thankfully, the book gets into the groove from Chapter 8 onwards, where Greenblatt summarizes the atomistic and Epicurean tenets in Lucretius' poem. The elements of this poem, from its enunciation of atoms as fundamental particles, the infiniteness of the void in which these particles move without design, their accidental coming together to form things that exist (which Lucretius calls The Swerve, hence the book's title), the experimental basis of nature without a moment of origin or a mythic scene of creation, shook the foundations of theology when translations of this poem became available, thanks to Bracciolini's initial discovery that was subsequently reproduced.
This book is an interesting read in terms of subject matter, though Greenblatt's style and interspersed literary references occasionally test the staying power of the reader. However, this account is worth a read - it highlights how a chance discovery by an obscure papal scribe, made an important contribution in the evolution of ideas that eventually shaped our modern world and its scientific philosophy - surprising facts, worth knowing. ...more

Like · see review

Mar 13, 2018 Susan O rated it really liked it

Shelves: pulitzers-gen-nf, science-and-math, history-ancient, box-1

Review to come.

1 like · Like · see review

May 04, 2013 Kathleen (itpdx) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Greenblatt writes of how a poem (evidently an exquisitely beautiful poem) written by a Roman Epicurean, Lucretius, was recovered and circulated by a 15th century Florentine papal scribe. And how the poem survived the Roman church's animosity to the ideas elucidated in the poem to become a foundation for Thomas More's Utopia and Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, and how it also formed a framework for Enlightenment scientists to view the world.
Greenblatt does an excellent job of bri ...more

Like · see review