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The Swerve
STEPHEN GREENBLATT

The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt
640 reviews (2011) (356p)
Amazon Best Books of 2011: Top 100 Editors' Picks
Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 2011: Nonfiction
New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011
National Book Award for Nonfiction
Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction
Barnes & Noble Best Books of 2011: Adult Nonfiction (25)
Hudson Booksellers Best Books of 2011: Nonfiction (10)
ALA Notable Books - Nonfiction

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Book Description

A riveting tale of the great cultural "swerve" known as the Renaissance.

One of the world's most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it.

Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.

The copying and translation of this ancient book-the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age-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. 16 pages full-color illustrations


Other Award Winning Books by Stephen Greenblatt
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
329 reviews (2004) (384p) (PP Bio) (NBCCA Bio) (NBA Non) (NYTimes Non) (TIME Non) (Amazon Dec EBio) (Amazon 04 E50)
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Stephen Greenblatt Award Stats
Major Prize* Nominations 6  
Unique Books Nominated for a Major Prize* 2  
Pulitzer Prize Wins 1 The Swerve ·  
Pulitzer Prize Nominations 2 Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare · The Swerve ·  
National Book Critics Circle Award Wins 0  
National Book Critics Circle Award Nominations 1 Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare ·  
National Book Award Wins 1 The Swerve ·  
National Book Award Nominations 2 Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare · The Swerve ·  
Man Booker Prize Wins 0  
Man Booker Prize Nominations 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Wins 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Nominations 0  

*Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award

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Pulitzer Prize | National Book Critics Circle Award | National Book Award | PEN/Faulkner Award | Man Booker Prize | Contact