The Swerve

Discover how one manuscript, lost to time for a thousand years, forever altered the course of human thought. Stephen Greenblatt's riveting tale of a wise, sharp-witted man in his late thirties taking a chance on an old manuscript is both a work of history and a thrilling story of discovery. The manuscript turned out to be On the Nature of Things, a dangerous philosophical epic by ancient Roman poet Lucretius. Its wild ideas that the universe functioned despite the gods, that fear of religion is harmful to humanity, and that tiny particles are in constant motion crashed into human thought and changed it forever. The ancient text inspired some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the ages, from Botticelli to Bruno, shaping minds like Galileo and Darwin, and even touching the words of Thomas Jefferson.