The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt

I heard about this one on the radio some months ago, but only just got around to it.  Even though Greenblatt's focus is on the Renascence humanist and bibliophile, Poggio Bracciolino, it is Bracciolino's discovery of the first-century BCE On the Nature of Things by Lucretius is the drive.

I really, really liked Greenblatt's reading and analysis of Epicurean, Stoic and Humanist philosophy within the context of their respective ages but...  Wow.  Is he ever biased.  He only grudgingly admits that Scholasticism (the intellectual driving force of the early to high Middle Ages) might (just maybe) have had something to do with the preservation of this great poem...  And, more to the point, he seems to delight in bashing on imperial and medieval Christians whenever he gets the chance.  


Ok, he's a prof at Harvard and his previous book was on Shakespeare, so I know he's going to favor the Ren/Ref ex post facto mentality...  But still.  There was something about reading this that set my intellectual tummy turning, both as a Latin teacher and former medievalist.  


That said, I want to read it again and mine it like the good little curiosity monster that I am.  ;)