Swerve

The Swerve: How the World Became Modern tells the story of Poggio Bracciolini, a Renaissance book hunter who rediscovered the last surviving manuscript of Lucretius's poem On the Nature of Things.

This ancient Roman philosophical epic presented radical ideas such as a universe without gods, the material nature of existence, and the critique of religious superstition.

Greenblatt argues that the poem's rediscovery fueled the Renaissance, inspired major artists and thinkers, and helped lay the intellectual foundations for the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, ultimately shaping the modern world.

The book combines biography, intellectual history, and a polemic against religious dogma, highlighting the poem's influence on figures like Galileo, Darwin, and Shakespeare.