>> rose: welme to our program.tt introduction to people who are part of the global conversation. tonight rahmi k, turkish businessman. >> there is no shortcut to democracy. you have to have democracy for many years, get the pains, get the -- the hang of it, and be educated for democracy, and accept democracy. and this will not be achievable over time in the other world, i think. it will take some time.

and of course there are different strengths of the economies of -- of different arab countries, oil-rich countries, oil-poor countries, and countries like egypt that are big but not very rich. so it's very difficult to bring them all under one common denominator, butf course it was right to advise and educate that these countries shod in the lo run be democratic, have a beral economy, and be like turkey. >> we continue our global conversations tonight with stephen greenblatt, a hvard professor and author of "the swerve: how the world became modern." >> why is that cultures that don't go in a straight lin simply reproduce themselves over and over again, especially if

they work things out reasonably well? why do they swerve? and this book is about perhaps the greatest swerve in our culture, in western culture, the thing we call the renaissance. so this was for me the quintessential story, the story of in a nutshell of how this happened, how the renaissance occurred that led to the place that we're at now, to the world that we've inherited from them. >> rahmi koc and stephen greenblatt next.

>> rose: rahmi koc is re, oneoft businessman. he ran koc holdings until 2003. he's now honorary chairman of the fatr. his father started the koc companies years ago, and it operates in energy, auto, banking, durables and much more. i'm pleased to have him at the table for the first time as we continue our conversations about turkey, its role in the region and the world. so welcome. >> thank you very much, charlie. >> rose: one thing that'simrtana review of a new gallery, of which your foundation made a significant $15 million or more contribution to this. theeviews have been extraordinary in the sense of

understanding, you know, the culture. >> yes, culture and -- it's a good thing that islam is portrayed in another way in these 15 galleries. >> rose: indeed.tell me about y. >> my father. >> rose: this shopkeeper whosta. >> if you consider my grandfather's general store where he came at 6:00 in the morning to clean, we're fourth generation now. my children are in business, fourth generation. and he started from his father's general store wre you can buy sausage and cheese at the same time, and i tried to create this shop in my museum. >> rose: right.he started from .

he found out there would be building in capital of turkey, so he went into buildings business. he went into gas pump business, you know, s pumping. then when he saw that more cars were coming, he tried to be a dealer, sub-sub-subdealer in those days beginning, because he was a subdealer of a dealer in istanbul, and istanbul dealer was reporting to alexander in egypt and alexander was reporting to detroit. it was a long step there. and then he found out that everything was coming to th non-muslims, you know, this community, and he had to buy from them everything. and then he decided to try to be

big enough to import and buy everything directly instead of going through the -- >> rose: middlan, wholesaler?ye. and then he start building his business. >> rose: did he have a magictou? >> his success, to try to get the best available talent around. he would always give them a portion, make them a partner sort of. >> rose: they weren't justemplo? >> they were partners. and they started small and became bigger. in the beginning they didn't pay for their partnership. when the business started making money, it was deducted from that. >> rose: yeah, right.yes. >> rose: the foundation is name? >> set up the foundation. he worked in those days, we didn't have the legal framework

for a foundation. he worked 15 years without giving up many many governments, many, many ministers, and after 15 years he managed to get through this law that allowed h to go into foreign foundations. then it was tax deductible. he got that also. >> rose: did he know atador?he . he met him a number of times. on the 29th of october, which is our independence day, there was a big party in ankara, called ankara palace, in whitetails. before they went, mother and father, we used to take family

photograph for the children, yes. >> rose: the business is doingw. >> business doing well thanks to our colleagues. they're running it very well. >> rose: you have nonfamilyceos. >> that's correct. >> rose: turkey's economy isdoi? >> very well, yes. >> rose: is it down from theexp? there's predictions from the imf and others that it might -- >> well, it's been growing 7%. >> rose: you think that'ssustai? >> last year it ow 9%. this year, they're thinking of about 6.5%. you see our economy is closely connected with european economy. >> rose: yes.55% of our exports- >> rose: 55% of turkey's export. so if the's a collapse in europe -- >> a slow-down in europe, we will definitely feel it, unless we find other markets.

>> rose: and that might bechina? >> other markets could be -- >> rose: brazil?soh america. it could be russi north africa companies. middle east is a mess. at the moment it's a standstill. but when you shift your focus from the european dand and what the european demand needs to other markets, you have to redesign your products. >> rose: to satisfylocal cultures? >> that's correct. and then you have to have dealerships and having your product known by those -- by those markets and so on. >> rose: do you expect china tot of time -- be able to shift from this export economy to a local demand, a consumer demand economy. >> they have already started. >> they've tried. they have a five-year plan to do

that. >> they've already started giving more emphasis to the local demand. >> rose: will that createmarkett might be a real godsend to people who want to export? >> we also have a factory in china. we're trying to sell it -- sell our products within china. it's very difficult to do business with the chinese. >> rose: why is that?they're ext people to deal with. roig demanding in what way? >> demanding. bargaining very hard. very smart people. their interest is china more than anything else. >> rose: nationalistic.their tys free, half free, and sometimes not free market. >> rose: yes, yes.they want a p?

>> yes. >> rose: you don't just come ing up something. >> it would be very difficult to operate in china if you don't have a chese partner. >> rose: yeah.that's very impor. and their distribution system is -- is -- in china, it's big country, so you cannot distribute throughout china, because the system doesn't allow you, and the infrastructure, so you have to choose certain areas and concentrate there. >> rose: you heard muchdiscussis been made to try to solve the greek issue. are you optimistic that they are on the right track, and that this might deliver? >> it took them one year to come this point. it took them 10 hours to come to -- to 50% -- >> rose: yes.i don't think euron

afford to let greece go. >> ros go into default?althoughs only 2% of the european economy, it can start domino effect, god forbid. if that starts, it's very dangerous. >> because other countries are volatile? >> yes. i found italy to be more important than both spain or portugal. >> rose: important in what way?s big -- italy's economy is big. >> rose: yes.it's bigger than tf the economies that we're talking about. and if something happens to italy, it would be very, very dugout europdifficult for europp the mess. >> rose: do you lieve thepolitio it? at every stage. by the germans, by the european unions, bite greek citizens. >> well, they have to do

something. they cannot go on like this, that's for sure. greece cannot go on the way it went until now. the prime minister is having difficulty to adopt no way of life. >> rose: they're asking peoplet. >> change their lifestyle and work style, work ethics. you know, greece -- >> rose: it's a hard sell.-- eci think, unregistered, people don't want to pay taxe and -- >> rose: yes.they have a real ph tax collection. >> tax collection is a big problem. not only there, but in our untry. >> rose: you have the sameprobl? >> yes. >> rose: you've spoken out abou. >> yes. >> rose: what's the problem?what tax collection? >> well, taxes are high in

turkey. >> rose: i mean, here's yourpoi. you have to pay a lot more taxes simply because they're not collecting taxes of people who owe taxes. >> if 50% doesn't pay taxes, the other 50% have to pay taxes for the 100%. >> rose: yeah, exactly.so the t. >> rose: so why does thegovernm? >> that's a good question. that's a good question. >> rose: you know the primemini. >> the prime minister is trying his best to collect. he's bringing in new legislation annew systems to collect wider tax, but when people are not used to paying taxes it's very difficult to tax them. my suggeion would be to reduce the present xes and bring realistic measures so that everybody pays their share. >> rose: would you issue kind o? i would try to go back to collect taxes that should have been paid, but from now on --

>> they did bring some amnesty in the past. yes, it's working them. also said they'll give a break, amount of taxes, if they pay in time. that also worked. so gradually we're getting there. but it's going to take some time. >> rose: do you think theturkish government want to be part of the european union? >> very much so. very much so. >> rose: do you think thateurop- i've raised this question with the foreign minister -- that it's not just turkey meeting some test that the european union has. there's also a sense that turkey is not european. does that offend you? >> well, they said turkey is not europe. i said -- is cyprus europe? he said, i'm not going to answer that question.

of course turkey is part of europe since the part o ottoman times. >> rose: how would youcharactery that? >> turkemade a mistake in the past. rkey was asked to join the common market. those days, when there were only five or six members, when greece was in 1978, when greece was negotiating membership, they invited us also to become member with no conditions. at that time turkey's population was about 44 million people. >> rose: right.and at that timee government, coalition government, said that we're not ready, our industry is not ready. we will tell you when we're ready. when we're ready, good industry, but europeans are 26 million, 26 countries that you have to take

their okay, the consent of each and every one of them. 's much more difficult. >> rose: do you believe it will? there's some effort that the turks, some leadership elements in turkey, are so unhappy wh the fact that it's been so difficult, that they want to say th, you know,ou can't take us for granted, or we may not forever be interested, because we're growing on our own. >> that's correct. the european full membership supporters were very badly disappointed and dismayed because europe dragged their feet and constantly brought us new measures. today that same enthusiasm is not there anymore. when the latest development in europe, euro land happened, thank god we were not in the

european union, but eventually i think turkey has to joint european union, become a membership. >> rose: it's in turkey'sintere? >> both interest of turkey, and interest of european union, because turkey's enomy is youn and growing and dynamic, and it's big. >> rose: beyond that, theturkisa bridge to the islamic world. >> very important. turkey is the only country i the world there's a member of nato, an organization of islamic countries. >> rose: exactly.yes, very impo. we are a bridge, both for energy, a bridge for east and west, a bridge for the mide east and europe. >> some argue -- i thi your primminister would argue this, too, as you know, has been on this program many times -- >> yeah.

>> ros -- that turkey may verywe countries coming out o the arab spring who are looking for what they might become. >> uh-huh. >> rose: in fact, he's madespeer places making that case. >> yes, he did, he did. >> rose: a secular state and --t and democracy. >> rose: right, yes.these threeo the arab world today is very difficult to achieve in the short term, because there's no short do you tell democracy. you have to have democracy for many years, get the pains, get the -- the hang of it, a be educated for democracy, and accept democracy, and this will

not be achiefable i achievable b world. it will take some time. there's different strengths of the economy of different arab countries, oil-rich countries, oil-poor countries, and countries like egypt that are big but not very rich. so it's very difficult to bring them all under one common denominator, but of course it was right to advise and educate that these countries in the long run should be democratic, where it will be liberal, have a liberal economy, and be like turkey. >> rose: some have pointed tfolt lunch today, you know, the old proverb that you can't win a war without egypt, and can't water-resistant peace without syria. >> right. >> rose: others will point outts for influence in the arab world,

neither are arab states -- turkey and iran. >> right. well, iran is a different case totally by itself. iran's operation is pro-american, and the administration is not pro-american. >> rose: people don'tnecessarilt is certainly true. >> it is, it is. >> rose: the population of iran. >> pro-american. and faer than other countries, i think, if the leaders lifted in iran. an i strong. egypt is -- can be very strong, because i has population and demand, but, again, i must say, you know, egypt, israel, and

turkey were the three legs that america's stood on. >> rose: three strongestsupport. turkey, egypt -- >> their alliance was very, very important for the region for the americans, for the countries themselves. >> rose: do you think --and thiw mellowed or weak understand. >> rose: because of the changes. >> changes in the regimes. when you suddenly have a dictatorship, you get a vacuu that's difficu to fill in. >> rose: there are those, as yoe minister -- i've raised this point with him, you know -- has a harsh rhetoric about israel, and that it's his design to appeal to the arab street. >> well, we were very good friends with israel, allies with

israel. >> rose: trading partners withi. creating business, technology -- >> rose: you mean your family o? >> turkey. turkey at large. and turkey is still doing businessith israel, but our prime minister was -- the turks were very upset about this flotilla business when nine people were killed in offshore seas, and israel so far has not apologized. they came very close to an apology, but because of the structure of the government in israel it slipped away. >> rose: there was a moment wher netanyahu would sign on to that. >> yes. >> rose: a kind of a policy fora they'd worked out. it was very close. >> i'm confident that sooner or later this -- this -- this ice

will melt and we'lle back again. there's some differences that has to be ironed out. >> rose: you've seen a lot.tellu optimisticnd what makes you pessimistic about the future. >> i'm basically an optimist. so i try to see the glass half full rather than half empty. and if you're willing to look at things in the positive manner and be positive about things, i think either you achieve it or you think it's becoming mo positive. i am positive. i believe the future of turkey. i believe in -- that the situation in the euroland will be in the not too distant future be repaired and restructured and

be a better europe than what it is today. >> rose: and the euroillsurvive? >> they have no chance but to make the euro survive. it will be a disaster -- i can't even imagine or think or restructure in myind how it would be if they went back to -- to their original currencies. but when you have single currency, you have to have single erything. if you don't have a single flag, single foreign policy, single economic policy, single monetary policy, it's very difficult to have a -- to have a single -- single currency, because countries that are not economically in goo shape did not devalue their currencies. >> rose: do you believe violents

losing their voice and they're competing in a more attractive -- and there are mor computecompeting, more attractie voices in the arab world? >> i do. they reached the highest point in the decline. >> rose: the iranian regime --n. the fundamental hard-core islamists concept, idea, is in the declin >> rose: what's rising?the notic tolerant, secular -- >> most moderate islam, democratic islam, open markets and friends with allhe neighbors, concept is coming now. >> rose: do you see because ofsr

things, doou sense in turkey more sort of fundamentalism, not in terms of that, but in terms of traditional islamic customs? i'm thinking of a veil, things like that. is it more apparent? >> yes. >> rose: what does that mean?int doesn't mean anything. if people want to wear what they want to wear. >> rose: there's room for allra. >> like this england, you don't have to wear a hemorrhages but a turban. this was a -- wear a horrhages buhemorrhages -- wear a helmet, but a turban. >> one argument made often about europe, they have not assimilated the islamic population. >> france has an islamic

population. >> rose: right.somehow they didt assimilate into the rest of the country. these are like french people born in north africa. >> rose: right, exactly.they're- >> rose: right, from algeria.ig. >> rose: who have been yourhero? >>n what? >> rose: in life.your father cl. >> in the political world indicators business world? >> rose: in the business world.. >> rose: built an industry?yeah. and started mass production. >> rose: yeah.the assembly line- >> and the invention of the steam engine. i think dustrial revolution in england was a great thing. now is the -- the -- >> rose: information revolution- >> yes. he's a genius. i think he's turned around the

whole concept of telecommunication and communication and information technology, and so on. >> rose: is there any sense thas you've h the great success you've had, in your family, you see your country now a prominent player, you see your city, istanbul as sort of o of the great cities in the world -- >> it's become a tourist destination. >> rose: indeed.and it should b. >> people come to istanbul to get married. can you imagine? >> rose: it has a beauty, avibrd history there. you know, the culture is clear. there's a whole sense of what a great place to be, which is part of my affection for the country as you know. >> yeah. istanbul is great. every time i'm away more than two weeks, i miss istanbul ver badly. >> rose: when you retired, orwh-

>> you're talking tie retired person. >> rose: be respectful, right?b. >> rose: you took off and wentoo years, did you? >> i went around the world in two years. 20,600 miles, nautical miles. >> rose: you just went out ands? >> because i love the sea. sea gives you tranquility. a gives you rest, fresh air. it makes you go into subjects that you never thought of in your life. when you're the pacific sea, the atlantic, things become very unimportant, and you try to concentrate on more major issues, which i find most interesting, in my vision, and concept since i returned from my world -- around-the-world trip has changed. >> rose: how has it changed?it'k

at more important things than worrying about small details. >> rose: what's a life meant to? >> y. i try to get to the bottomf the line immediately instead of going through various stages. so when they make an expose to me, you know, i say start from the bottom. let's see what the bottom is, you build up. >> rose: see what the answer yoo get there, but make sure you know what the definition is. >> right, absolutely. >> rose: it's a great pleasuret. >> thank you very much indeed. it was a great pleasure to have made your acquaintance. >> rose: thank you.stephen greea professor of the humanities at harvard university, perhaps best known for his biography of william shakespeare. his latest book is called "the swerve: how the world became modern." it is a story of how poem, lost for 1,000 years, helped shape the modern world. i'm pleased to have stephen greenblatt back at this table. welcome. >> thank you very much.

>> rose: this is one greatstory. >> it is a great story. thank you. i don't take credit for it, except that it's a magnificent story. >> rose: tell the story offindir section at yale the book that you found. >> when i was an undergraduate, with very little money in my pock, i picked up at the end of the year in a bin of books for sale a book that cost a dime with a cover that caught my attention. i'd never heard of the author. >> rose: you bought it for thec? >> absolutely. i judged the book by the cover. the author was someone i'd never heard of. the title i'd never heard of. i saw it was a book about ancient physics. i thought, hmm, i'm not interested in ancient physics, but e cover was alluring. two pairs of legs up the sky doing -- you couldn't tell what it was, but it was from a surrealistic painting, so i

bought it, and it spoke to me. itas one of those experiences that one has in life in which suddenly something is with you, in the room with you, speaking to you directly. >> rose: thought it had beenwri? >> as if it had been written for me, though it was written 2,000 years ago by someone who couldn't have known me, but it seemed to be directed at me. it was a very important experience in my life. >> rose: and who was lucretius?e this poem, admired by his contemporaries, and then disappeared maybe 300 or 400 years after he wrote it, circulated, read, and went out of sight for more than 4,000 years. there are stories circulated about him, but you can't trust

them, poisoned by his wife with a love potion, we mad, things that sinners said about lucretius. >> rose: so what happened?this s poem, but everything that the poem spoke about and for basically went under when the roman world went under, when the libraries were shut down, when the schools were closed, when copying books stopped, when the people owned books were hauled off into slavery, when illiterate warlords took over the remains of the roman empire. so this book, this magnificent poem, which was supposed to last as long as the world lasted was just within a hair of disappearing. the poem was hugely admired.

this poem disappears in effect, isn't seen, it's out of circulation, and no one knows, like many, many things in the ancient world that disappear, lots of plays, they just vanish. then unexpectedly one day, january 1417 a man, a papal bureaucrat, finds himself, not by accident, in a libry, a mow that isic library somewhere in switzerland ferreting around are library for a manuscript, he takes this, copies it, and the world gins to change. >> rose: how does it change?in .

it changes because this brought back into the wod in a very robust, magnificent form, ideas that people hadn't been talking about for more than a millennium, and those ideas turned out to be devastatingly important. >> rose: understood the atom,th- >> it starts with a peculiar speculation, much older than lucretius, that came from the greeks. the advocates of this, their works were all lost. that the universe consists of an imnumerable number of infinitesimally small things that are inmotion and the greeks called them atoms, the things that couldn't be taken apart, and the world consisted of that and this emptiness and of nothing else, nothing else. no mysterious forces, no strange angels, demons, moving things around. just atoms emptiness and nothing else.

th this theory, which really starts -- science as we derstand it,eople lying around thinking about things that why is ithat a gold ring after a lifetime is smaller than it was at the beginning. why does it wear away? what does it mean for it to wear away? or why is it -- what are you seeing when you're lying down and you look in the shaft of sunlight and you see dust dancing about? what if the world was made up of something like that. you begin there, then begin to tease out the implications of that. it were the implications that were devastating and disturbing and liberating, but liberating only for some, disturbing for many. the ideas were very dangerous, because it wasn't simply that atoms, emptiness, and nothing else. that would already struck people in 1714 as a weird idea. it struck people for a long time after that as a strong idea. atom ia hard idea to get in

your hard. lucretius what follows from this is that the world was not created by anybody. it didn't need a creator. it didn't need intelligent design. it happened as a result of the endless experimentation of nature, of atoms banging together, coming apart -- >> rose: what about religion?lul religions were essentially delusional. they had to do with the fear of human beings, that they were being punished, for example, when things went wrong, orb the desire that human beings had that somehow they could be manipulate things so that magically things would go right, and they were ultimately cruel. he said -- he was writing before the common era, a he said that religions have a disturbing tendency to come back to a story of the sacrifice of a child. hchild. this was 50, beforethe birth of

christ, but the idea was that there was something disturbing about -- to him about religion. you should be free from this disturbance, you should be liberated from the delusion. but the question is liberated into what? liberated into acceptance of the fact that we are what we are. >> rose: what part all of thiss? >> well, the first part that spoke to me deeply, maybe still the part that speaks to me deeply, is cented on something that lucretius says with enormous power, which is that if all of this is true, then death is nothing to us, he says. death is meaningless. not becauswe will go on to a happier state, but precisely because we won't, because there is nothing. we don't exist afterwards. the atoms come apart. the soul dies along with the body for. me personally -- everyone comes at these from a personal place -- i grew up in a family in which myother particularly who had lost a younger sister

when she was a very sensitive age, as so many people lost siblings in those days, the days before penicillin, my mother was haunted by the fear of dying. and it was for me a remarkable experience to read this voice that was speaking to me saying, you actually will poison your life if you spend it in endless fear of what will happen inevitly anyway. >> rose: your mother, when shewy it's happening. >> feel it she would say, that her vein or artery was pounding. >> rose: she thought themont ha. >> so i had had from a very, very loving mother, and a sensitive and gentle one, a lifetime of fear of this event. >> rose: so this helped youover? >> it was meant curiously enough in the ancient world as a kind

of therapy. 2,000 years later it was a kind of thera for me. the man who found the book, who was really at the center of my story, is a fascinating and odd fellow. he's the greatest book hunter of his age. >> rose: right.he was nobody f- >> rose: that's why ts is amovi. >> he was from a sll town. no one everoes there unless you getff the wrong side of the highway on the way to the armani outlet. he's from a little town. his father was poor had to leave town actually to escape his creditors. but he winds up in florence with a remarkable gift. he has magnificent handwriting. that gift turns out to be the key to his career, because he comes to the attention of the florentine chancellors, the age before print, so things need to be copied. he is able to use this gift

eventually to secure what the ambitious young man of that world wanted, which was a position in the papal court in rome. he was a scripter they called it in the papal court, and eventually he rose to become the secretary to someone who was had arguably the worst pope in the history papacy, which is an unusual achievement, a man who was known as john xxiii. >> rose: right.now, known as the john xxiii because the name was taken away from him andidn't come back until 1958. you can see how poisonous the name was, because from the early 15th century when th name was moved from this man till 1958 no one was elected pope -- >> rose: vatican 2.exactly. >> rose: why did he want thatna? >> he had amazing courage as we know from his whole life. >> rose: sure.he decided after s

a perfectly good name for a pope to have. also a southern italian, so because the disgraced pope was a southern italian, he would return the name to circulation. >> rose: so back to lucretius.wk we should le? >> he thought you should lead a simple life essentially. not an extremely stripped of all pleasures. he thought that the center of life, the thing that -- all human beings, because all living creatures want is pleasure. not virtue, not glory, not the success of the state, not piety, but pleasure. the enhancement of pleasure and avoidance of pain. he thought we shared that with turtles and worms, all creatures, and that anything that made sense our lives, including the hical world that we live in, t choices we make in our lives would somehow have to be connected to the

enhancementof pleasure and reduction of pain, but heidn't think that that pleasure mnt binge drinking,extravagant orgies, that sort of. he's a follohe thought you needt as a relatively simple arrangement, and that on the whole under pursue pleasure in a iet way. he hated the coliseum, gladiators, skeptical about the service to the state. it wasn't until a remarkable thing happened many, many centuries later that thomas jefferson, who happened to love lucretius -- >> rose: had four copies.had mu.

>> rose: was it four or five?fi. was a terrific latinist. he decided to in a remarkable move to change the words of i think the virginia constitution, "life, liberty and property" to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. >> rose: tt's from lucretius?hi. lucretius couldn't have imagined a whole state organized surrounding that. >> rose: did jefferson talkaboum lucretius? >> not in relation t the declaration of indendence, but he wrote to correspondents i'm an epicurean. he loved a life of pleasure, loved the years he spent quietly actually, away from the -- which

is very epicurean, away from the full struggle of politics, as well as he loved the struggle. >> rose: but he loved the timeal the things he loved, books and wine and -- >> he could savor life, very much part of the lucretian way of life. you had to enjoy your life, you can't think there's lilly fields afterwards or that you're going to roll a rock up forever. it's just going to be now and under experience it with wonder. >> rose: maybe that's why ilike. think about the time of your first encounter, when you read it that summer. >> yes. >> rose: you're now writing thi. >> yes. a lot of years go by. >> rose: was it an idea that yod it come because of the idea of the boo >> a combination of two things. a little bit desire to -- well,

i had her business. i was interested in shakespeare and at the renaissance in england. secondly i thought for a long time i probably would need a brain transplant to be able to write this book. >> rose: you didn't have therig? >> well, there's so many things that one would like to know. so many things i would love to know in order to understand this -- this in the richest and most satisfying way. then i realized it was now or never, charlie. >> rose:eah.if i was going to do something with this, i wasn't going to be able to wait another 60 or 100 years. >> rose: why do you call it "th? >> there's a couple reasons. first of all, the ancients had a problem, which was why don't the at toms simply fall down from a straight line? >> rose: they didn't understand. >> which didn't come until

newton, who was influenced by lucretius, but the understanding of how gravity worked wasn't understood by the ancients. so the question was, why esn't everything fall inu7.sjy&line. lucretius's answer was that there's a swer in the atoms, and that means -- that causes the atoms to bang into each other, and it's the banging into each other that initiates the constant experimentation of nature. the idea of the swerve in the atom was regarded as ridiculous until quantum physics, but it served for lucretius as an explanation for why there was freedom in the world, why everything wasn't simply lockstep. for me the term is important, nearby gesturing toward that, toward the things that fascinates me maybe most which is why don't cultures go in a straight line? why don't they reproduce themselves over and over and over again? especially if they've worked

things out reasonably well. why do they swerve? >> rose: right.and this book ist perhaps thereatest swerve in our culture, in western culture, which is the thing we call the renaissance. >> rose: right.so this was for e quintessential -- the story is the story of, in a nutshell, of how this happened, how the renaissance occurred that led to the place that we'ret now, to the world that we've inherited from them. >> rose: what did thepublication amazon for the sale of the poem? >> a strange thing happened that actually thrilled me. the book i'm happy to say is doing well. >> rose: indeed it is.somethingf me, made me quite giddy, which is that i looked on amazon and saw that brief -- probably wasn't for very long -- that lucretius, when i checked, was the third best-selling poet i the united states. so there was a moment in which

suddenly a lot of people thought -- >> rose: lucretius got his duef. >> it's a wonderful poem. >> rose: and the command oflang- >> well, the command of language is difficult. one of the reasons that the poem survived is that the -- in the 15th century they decided it was hard enough in latin to gi it as a school book to children who are learning latin. children learning latin in those days were beaten severely, the best way of learning latin in those days. this was a hard thing to learn. so a lot of people suffered. it's a magnificent poem, but it's difficult. in english it's rather easier for the likes of us, but i have read it in latin, and it's -- it's a magnificent poem, a beautiful poem. >> rose: you have been verystrot anybody who doubts shakespeare was the author of all of that simply has not accepted the genius of the man, and that he could veryell have do th.

he did not have to have all the qualities that critics say lacking he couldn't have written these books. >> the critics who advance the idea that the earl of oxford wrote the plays say that only a nobleman from the right family with the right educatn who went to university, had an elaborate network of connections to the monarchy could have written the plays that shakespeare wrote, many of the plays that involved awriso carats and monarchs. we have imagination precisely that enable us, especially the most gifted us, to cross lines. it's a strange form of snobbery to imagine that only an aristocrat could write these

words. the earl of oxford died before the outpouring of shakespeare's works, many that emerged after he died. >> rose: why do they cling toit? >> it's sort of amazing amusingi suppose, if you don't thinkt matters. i think that identity theft of someone 400 years ago probably doesn't matter in the way that it would matter if someone stole my credit card, but there's something odd abo the --his particular parlor game, because it's a little bit -- though it's even less likely than the stories that nasa faked the moon landing using atudio in hollywood. that's a much more plausible story than the earl of oxford writing shakespeare's plays.

>> rose: the subtitle is "howth" what does that mean? >> well, out at the far end, first of all, of what lucretius brought into the world of figures that are key figures that -- lucretius said, because nature's constantly experimenting, there must have been other species in the world befo we existed, and they'll be other species in the world after our type ceases to exist. nature tes lots of different things. if a experience is able to find food for -- species is able to find food for itself and reproduce, it will last for a while, but not forever, because the environment changes, the world changes, nothing last forevers. if that idea sounds familiar to you, it's because of darwin. >> rose: right.darwin didn't ne. he needed his time in the galapagos looking at finches, but only got there because certain ideas had been re-released into the world, as it were, and were percolating

for a long time before he came along. likewise, einstein who wrote a rather elegant introduction, a preface to a german translation of lucretius didn't need lucretius to tell him about atoms, because experimental science and mathematics that lucretius couldn't have known, but again the way the world came about that led to darwin and einstein starts with the flap of the butterfly's wings that happened in january of 1417 when one man took a book off a shelf and decided to copy it and return it to circulation. >> rose: the book is called hes" thank you. a pleasure. >> thank you, charlie.

captning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org