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 ...
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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.
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I'm not finished, so this review is based on partial experience.
This is a fascinating topic and well worth studying. I have a complaint, which is common to books of history aimed at nontechnical readers. I am disturbed and annoyed by reading an author's description of internal mental states of subjects long dead and not available for interview. Author, you can't know what a person in your narrative was thinking at any time. Don't tell me about it. You debase the information and analysis of that that you are presenting.
At the same time, what is presented is of great importance in understanding the shift in modes of thought engendered by Poggio's discovery of the Lucretius manuscript. It is well worth putting up with annoyance to get to the gold in them there hills.
Ileana I
Jul 29, 2012
In the pursuit of happiness
Beautifully crafted scholarly research about the power of ideas that reads like a novel. His chapter on the scriptorium reminded me of Eco's "The Name of the Rose". Greenblatt challenges his readers to think about the meanings of "the pursuit of happiness" in our own time.
Hugh T. J
Jul 19, 2012
Excellent take on pre Enlightenment thinking
I found this book to be highly informative about the intellectual transition that formed the basis of the Renaissance. This has to be a must read for anyone who wants to get a nuanced understanding of this turbulent period and even has relevance in today's highly charged political discourses.
Albert A
Jul 19, 2012
Overly Ambitious
A colorful, albeit biased, glimpse into 14th and 15th Century Italy. Mr.Greenblatt's central thesis is that the Renaissance was inspired by the rediscovery of the Lucretius poem, " On the Nature of Things." In my view, Mr. Greenblatt is never able to prove anything like causality.
The book does provide a very personal view of many of the central,and minor, characters of the Renaissance.
