Book description
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have
transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have
inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened,
outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and
destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers,
pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and
helped make us who we are. Elegant, insightful and startlingly modern,
the philosophy of Lucretius deeply influenced the course of European
thought; here, he provides one of the first accounts of atomic theory,
argues that there can be no life of the soul after death, and explores
the sickness that we call love. Titus Lucretius Carus must have been
born soon after 100 BC, and was probably already dead when his poem was
given to the world in 55 BC. He was a Roman citizen and a friend of
Gaius Memmius, an eminent Roman statesman, and his poem was read and
admired by Cicero.
