Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, published by W. W. Norton in 2011, is an award winning work of popular intellectual history by a Harvard literary historian; it won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Its strength is that it tells, with real scholarly grounding, how Poggio Bracciolini's 1417 rediscovery of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura helped shape the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Its limit is that some specialist historians of philosophy have argued Greenblatt overstates the manuscript's singular causal role in bringing about modernity, a debate the atlas notes exists.
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Reliability Tier1
Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, published by W. W. Norton in 2011, the top tier reflecting an award winning work of popular intellectual history by a Harvard literary historian, winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, telling with real scholarly grounding how Poggio Bracciolini's 1417 rediscovery of Lucretius helped shape the Renaissance. Its limit is that some specialist historians of philosophy have argued Greenblatt overstates the manuscript's singular causal role in bringing about modernity, a debate the atlas notes exists. NotesPulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, by the Harvard literary historian. Tells how Poggio Bracciolini found a manuscript of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura in a German monastery in 1417 and traces its influence into the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Use for the Epicureanism philosophicalschool fact.
Citation
AuthorStephen Greenblatt
PublisherW. W. Norton
Publication Year2011
Source TypeBook (popular history)
Claims Backed By This Source (11 claims)
This source backs 11 claims across the atlas. As facts: 10 well-attested. Plus 1 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Sources, 7 claims: 7 well-attested.
- Articles, 3 claims: 3 well-attested.
- Philosophical Schools, 1 claims: 1 general references.
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