The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt.
I'm listening to it as an audio book, because I'm on a driving trip. Almost done with it, and it is one of the most amazing books ever. The subtitle is How the World Became Modern, which is, in my opinion, somewhat misleading, but that's a discussion that doesn't have a place here.
It's about the rediscovery of a long poem, De Rerum Natura, On the Nature of Things by the Roman poet Lucretius. The poem had been completely lost for a thousand years when a copy was found by Poggio Bracciolini in a monastery in Germany. The poem itself is the most remarkable statement of the nature of things, the title. It says everything is made up of atoms, the smallest possible units of matter, and that life evolves.
The book itself is wide ranging, detailing Bracciolini's career, the state of the Catholic Church in the early 15th century, the high esteem that the ancient world was held in, the replacement of "pagan" ideas by the teachings of the Catholic Church, and much, much more.
It's impossible to sum up in less than several thousand words what is covered in this book so I will only say that you should all read it.
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