The Swerve

For the film, see The Swerve (film). For other uses, see Swerve.

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
AuthorStephen Greenblatt
LanguageEnglish
GenreNon-fiction
PublisherW. W. Norton & Company (hardcover)
The Bodley Head (UK)
Publication date
September 2011 (hardcover) ISBN 9780393064476
ASIN: B005LW5J9O (kindle US)
(mobipocket UK)ISBN 9781446499290
(epub) ISBN 9780393083385
September 2012 (paperback) ISBN 9780099572442
June 2015 (audiobook) ISBN 9781501260506
Publication placeUnited States, UK
Pages368 (hardcover)

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (paperback edition: The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began[1]) is a 2011 book by Stephen Greenblatt and winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction and 2011 National Book Award for Nonfiction.[2][3]

Greenblatt tells the story of how Poggio Bracciolini, a 15th-century papal emissary and obsessive book hunter, saved the last copy of the Roman poet Lucretius's De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) from near-terminal neglect in a German monastery, thus reintroducing important ideas that sparked the modern age.[4][5][6]

The title and the subtitle of the book are explained in the author's preface. "The Swerve" refers to a key conception in the ancient atomistic theories according to which atoms moving through the void are subject to clinamen: while falling straight through the void, they are sometimes subject to a slight, unpredictable swerve. Greenblatt uses it to describe the history of Lucretius' own book: "The reappearance of his poem was such a swerve, an unforeseen deviation from the direct trajectory—in this case, toward oblivion—on which that poem and its philosophy seemed to be traveling."[7] The recovery of the ancient text is seen as its rebirth, i.e. a "renaissance". Greenblatt's claim is that it was a 'key moment' in a larger "story ... of how the world swerved in a new direction".[7]

  1. ^ "The Swerve: How the Renaissance Began by Stephan Greenblatt: Review".
  2. ^ The 2012 Pulitzer Prize Winners: General Nonfiction, Columbia University, retrieved May 28, 2012
  3. ^ 2011 National Book Award Winner, Nonfiction, National Book Foundation, retrieved May 31, 2012
  4. ^ 'The Swerve': When an Ancient Text Reaches Out and Touches Us, PBS, May 25, 2012, retrieved May 31, 2012
  5. ^ Garner, Dwight (September 27, 2011), "An Unearthed Treasure That Changed Things", The New York Times, retrieved May 31, 2012
  6. ^ Owchar, Nick (November 20, 2011), "Book review: 'The Swerve: How the World Became Modern'", Los Angeles Times, retrieved May 31, 2012
  7. ^ a b Stephen Greenblatt, The Swerve: How the World Became Modern W. W. Norton & Company, p.14 ff.