The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve

Thrilling … a study of western disenchantment, of intellectual progress, of the fading powers of the myths of a simpler age. But it is a more complex study than that. It is also an ode to human creativity and to the powerful grip of narrative

Tim Whitmarsh, Guardian

Fascinating

Christina Borg, Sunday Times

Enthralling, thrilling… Along the way, there is an often hilarious account of scholastic efforts to rationalise the myth’s illogic, and an array of entertaining heresies… What gives Greenblatt’s “intellectual adventure” its tension and excitement is a sense of his own divided loyalties

Peter Conrad, Observer

Erudite, wide-ranging, thought-provoking and elegantly fashioned

Darragh McManus, Irish Independent

Greenblatt, on excellent form here, visits familiar destinations ... with fresh eyes, and opens up new interpretative vistas ... Hefty themes are covered in this spellbinding book, but the learning is worn lightly.

Jonathan Wright, BBC History magazine

This is a learned book, but Greenblatt’s passion for story-telling makes it read like a series of fascinating anecdotes… The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve is exhilarating to read and a feast for the mind

John Carey, Sunday Times

Greenblatt is utterly engaging.

Miri Rubin, Prospect

Greenblatt's inexhaustible curiosity goes without saying; what makes this book a wonder is its passion … nothing less than a love story, a hymn. Who would have thought scholarship could be so ardent or so poignant?

Howard Jacobson, winner of the MAN Booker Prize

Pellucid, absorbing and for many contemporary readers surely definitive account

John Gray, New Statesman