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The Swerve: How the World Became Modern Paperback – September 4, 2012

4.4 out of 5 stars 3,147

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"The ideas in The Swerve are tucked, cannily, inside a quest narrative. . . . The details that Mr. Greenblatt supplies throughout The Swerve are tangy and exact. . . . There is abundant evidence here of what is Mr. Greenblatt’s great and rare gift as a writer: an ability, to borrow a phrase from The Swerve, to feel fully 'the concentrated force of the buried past.'"
New York Times

"In this gloriously learned page-turner, both biography and intellectual history, Harvard Shakespearean scholar Greenblatt turns his attention to the front end of the Renaissance as the origin of Western culture's foundation: the free questioning of truth."
starred review, Publishers Weekly

"More wonderfully illuminating Renaissance history from a master scholar and historian."
starred review, Kirkus Reviews

"In
The Swerve, the literary historian Stephen Greenblatt investigates why [Lucretius'] book nearly dies, how it was saved and what its rescue means to us."
Sarah Bakewell, New York Times Book Review

"In this outstandingly constructed assessment of the birth of philosophical modernity, renowned Shakespeare scholar Greenblatt deftly transports reader to the dawn of the Renaissance...Readers from across the humanities will find this enthralling account irresistible."
starred review, Library Journal

"Every tale of the preservation of intellectual history should be as rich and satisfying as Stephen Greenblatt's history of the reclamation and acclamation of Lucretius's
De rerum natura from obscurity."
John McFarland, Shelf Awareness

"It's fascinating to watch Greenblatt trace the dissemination of these ideas through 15th-century Europe and beyond, thanks in good part to Bracciolini's recovery of Lucretius' poem."
Salon.com

"But
Swerve is an intense, emotional telling of a true story, one with much at stake for all of us. And the further you read, the more astonishing it becomes. It's a chapter in how we became what we are, how we arrived at the worldview of the present. No one can tell the whole story, but Greenblatt seizes on a crucial pivot, a moment of recovery, of transmission, as amazing as anything in fiction."
Philadelphia Inquirer

"[
The Swerve] is thrilling, suspenseful tale that left this reader inspired and full of questions about the ongoing project known as human civilization."
Boston Globe

"Can a poem change the world? Harvard professor and bestselling Shakespeare biographer Greenblatt ably shows in this mesmerizing intellectual history that it can. A richly entertaining read about a radical ancient Roman text that shook Renaissance Europe and inspired shockingly modern ideas (like the atom) that still reverberate today."
Newsweek

"A fascinating, intelligent look at what may well be the most historically resonant book-hunt of all time."
Booklist

"Pleasure may or may not be the true end of life, but for book lovers, few experiences can match the intellectual-aesthetic enjoyment delivered by a well-wrought book. In the world of serious nonfiction, Stephen Greenblatt is a pleasure maker without peer."
Newsday

"
The Swerve is one of those brilliant works of non-fiction that's so jam-packed with ideas and stories it literally boggles the mind."
Maureen Corrigan, NPR/Fresh Air

About the Author

Stephen Greenblatt (Ph.D. Yale) is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. Also General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, he is the author of eleven books, including Tyrant, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve: The Story that Created Us,The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (winner of the 2011 National Book Award and the 2012 Pulitzer Prize); Shakespeare's Freedom; Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare; Hamlet in Purgatory; Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World; Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture; and Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare. He has edited seven collections of criticism, including Cultural Mobility: A Manifesto, and is a founding coeditor of the journal Representations. His honors include the MLA’s James Russell Lowell Prize, for both Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England and The Swerve, the Sapegno Prize, the Distinguished Humanist Award from the Mellon Foundation, the Wilbur Cross Medal from the Yale University Graduate School, the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre, the Erasmus Institute Prize, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Berkeley. He was president of the Modern Language Association of America and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and Arcadia―Accademia Letteraria Italiana.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (September 4, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 356 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393343405
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393343403
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.4 x 1 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 3,147

About the author

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Stephen Greenblatt
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Stephen Greenblatt is Cogan University Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. General Editor of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and The Norton Shakespeare, he is also the author of thirteen books, including The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve; The Swerve: How the World Became Modern; Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare; Hamlet in Purgatory; Practicing New Historicism; Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World; and Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture. He has edited six collections of criticism, is the co-author (with Charles Mee) of a play, Cardenio, and is a founding coeditor of the journal Representations. He was named the 2016 Holberg Prize Laureate. Additional honors include the MLA's James Russell Lowell Prize, for Shakespearean Negotiations: The Circulation of Social Energy in Renaissance England, the Distinguished Humanist Award from the Mellon Foundation, and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the University of California, Berkeley. He was president of the Modern Language Association of America and has been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Philosophical Society.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
3,147 global ratings
You've got to love Poggio Bracciolini ... and the 15th century version of whiteout
5 Stars
You've got to love Poggio Bracciolini ... and the 15th century version of whiteout
Read this book, it's great. You have to read the book the get the title of my review. It won't be a waste of your time. This book is exceptionally erudite, very accessible and also a fun read. How often do you find that? Almost never...but here it is. Greenblatt gets into the action immediately and drags you into a 15th century Silicon Valley soap opera starring an awesome, talented and somewhat absurd entrepreneur hero, Poggio Bracciolini. He sucks you into a chaotically changing world where the catholic church had numerous, all wildly corrupt competing, popes, folks who speak out being thrown into dungeons, burnt at the stake or merely silenced if they have powerful friends.I consider it a must read particularly if, like me, you've been educated in the sciences and quite possibly share the ultra-modern but narrow world view which current science education tends to promote i.e. learn about the leading edge of developments, rarely read original sources and never delve into the thinking, observation and politics that got us here. It's quite a fight from Lucretius to computational chemistry. And by no means an easy twenty two centuries. But you've got to love Poggio Bracciolini ... a good old entrepreneur ... and the 15th century version of whiteout: milk, cheese and lime.I was switched onto this book from a very unusual source, by watching a colleague's Nobel Lecture in December 2013: http://www.nobelprize.org/mediaplayer/index.php?id=1979 - fast forward to 20:50 if the chemistry bores you.
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epiq
5.0 out of 5 stars Great informative read
Reviewed in Canada on January 8, 2023
karol sapiro
5.0 out of 5 stars Obra prima.
Reviewed in Brazil on December 28, 2021
irene limon boyce
5.0 out of 5 stars Llegó a tiempo en buen estado
Reviewed in Mexico on October 8, 2021
Iggy
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2023
Dominika
4.0 out of 5 stars Ok
Reviewed in Poland on February 16, 2023