Each month Abington Library will feature a favorite book from a faculty, staff member, or student. They will give a brief synopsis of their chosen book. Instructions can be found on the instructions tab or at libguides.asub.edu/VanguardSpotlightBook/Instructions.
The Swerve
Reviewed by Ticu Gamalie
The Swerve - An intellectual awakening that triumphs over the oppressive abyss of the Dark Ages.
I have been fascinated by moments like this in history. A certain type of “historical node” which eventually changed the course of human thought and made possible the development of our world as we know it.
This is a story about a Florentine bibliophile (Poggio Braccionlini) who, in 1417, stumbled in a German monastery upon a 500-year-old copy of De Rerum Natura (On Nature of Things) written by Lucretius. It is a comprehensive exposition of the Epicurean worldview, but more important included in this presentation are theories of the atomic structure of matter and the emergence and evolution of life forms – ideas that would eventually form a crucial foundation and background for the development of western science.
According with Professor Greenblatt the acceptance of this lost book of Lucretius fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.
It reminds me a lot of “The Name of the Rose” – because ‘learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.’
