This is the book that started me on the path of Epicurean studies years ago. Whether or not it was entirely historically accurate didn't really bother me. Previously my only knowledge of Epicurus and his teachings was through a modern Stoic lens, so you can imagine that my opinion of this philosophy was neither informed or positive. The Swerve was the first nail in the coffin of my brief enchantment with Stoicism, and reading the extant writings of Epicurus as well as writings by modern Epicureans buried it completely.
It seems to me the biggest problem with the book is that it exaggerates the impact of the discovery of Lucretius's book. The Renaissance was (in part) set off by the "crise pyrrhoniane" - the Pyrrhonian crisis resulting from the discovery of the works of Sextus Empiricus. There was no corresponding Epicurean crisis.
That's not to say that Lucretius wasn't important. It was major. But it was in no way solely responsible for the Renaissance.
I don't find this to be a particular problem of the book. An exaggerated sense of the importance of one's subject is to some degree a feature of any book, and perhaps the genre of "popular, simplified history with a catchy hook" is going to be more prone to giving that impression than a more measured (and boring) academic book. But to be fair to Greenblatt, I think he gives the expected scholarly caveat in an clear and upfront way in the preface:
"There is no single explanation for the emergence of the Renaissance and the release of the forces that have shaped our own world. But I have tried in this book to tell a little known but exemplary Renaissance story, the story of Poggio Bracciolini's recovery of On the Nature of Things... One poem by itself was certainly not responsible for an entire intellectual, moral, and social transformation--no single work was" (11).
This is the book that started me on the path of Epicurean studies years ago. Whether or not it was entirely historically accurate didn't really bother me. Previously my only knowledge of Epicurus and his teachings was through a modern Stoic lens, so you can imagine that my opinion of this philosophy was neither informed or positive. The Swerve was the first nail in the coffin of my brief enchantment with Stoicism, and reading the extant writings of Epicurus as well as writings by modern Epicureans buried it completely.
It seems to me the biggest problem with the book is that it exaggerates the impact of the discovery of Lucretius's book. The Renaissance was (in part) set off by the "crise pyrrhoniane" - the Pyrrhonian crisis resulting from the discovery of the works of Sextus Empiricus. There was no corresponding Epicurean crisis.
That's not to say that Lucretius wasn't important. It was major. But it was in no way solely responsible for the Renaissance.
I don't find this to be a particular problem of the book. An exaggerated sense of the importance of one's subject is to some degree a feature of any book, and perhaps the genre of "popular, simplified history with a catchy hook" is going to be more prone to giving that impression than a more measured (and boring) academic book. But to be fair to Greenblatt, I think he gives the expected scholarly caveat in an clear and upfront way in the preface:
"There is no single explanation for the emergence of the Renaissance and the release of the forces that have shaped our own world. But I have tried in this book to tell a little known but exemplary Renaissance story, the story of Poggio Bracciolini's recovery of On the Nature of Things... One poem by itself was certainly not responsible for an entire intellectual, moral, and social transformation--no single work was" (11).