The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

Author: Stephen Greenblatt

The title of this book is pretty bold. At first glance, I noticed that this book had won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction and quickly concluded that I had a winner on my hands. The first few pages moved quickly and Dr. Greenblatt does a great job of setting the stage and grounding you in the culture in Europe in the early 15th century. It is a time when the Pope was all-powerful and Christianity was running rough-shod in Europe. 

It was a time when modern humanism was popular among the intellectuals. They were eager to develop what are known today as humanities: grammar, history, poetry and philosophy.  A little known fact is that many of the great works of ancient times from Cicero, Plutarch, Socrates, Aristotle, etc. didn’t survive the ravages of time and are lost forever. Since the printing press had not been invented yet, these were handwritten manuscripts, some of which were carefully preserved in monasteries.  With the rise of Christianity, many of them were intentionally suppressed and some may even have been written over by the monks. Papyrus being a scare commodity, it often made economic sense to erase the books and just write over them. The monks used to spend a good chunk of their time, reading and copying over documents and so were fertile ground to go hunting for ancient manuscripts

With this backdrop, we have an unusual savior in Poggio Bracciolini. He studied law and entered the service of Cardinal Landolfo Maramaldo as his secretary. He soon rose to being a papal Secretary under several different Popes. He was respected for his excellent Latin and his extraordinary beautiful handwriting. The latter quality being key to his ability to copy rare manuscripts. To cut a long story short, he discovers the only surviving manuscript of Lucretius’ De Rerun Natura — on the Nature of Things — and gets it copied. This is a 7000+ verse poem that is inspired by the Greek Philosopher, Epicureus and was written around 50 BC. Epicureus postulated that it was reason, and not religion, that was critical to understanding the world we inhabit. It proposes that there are laws of nature that govern the many phenomenon that we observe around us. It expounds on many modern concepts, including the fact that matter is comprised of atoms. Atoms are constantly in motion and can neither be created or destroyed. He tackles astronomical phenomena and states that the universe is infinite. In addition to the many accurate scientific statements, the poem is considered to be a masterpiece in latin.

Very soon the printing presses were invented and Lucretius’ De Rerun Natura got injected back into circulation and inspired the great thinkers of the Renaissance. It is Dr. Greenblatt’s view that this book was instrumental in inspiring us to creating the modern world we live in today.