I have never heard of Russo, but I would be highly skeptical of his central idea. He has a point: ancient science was robust and much has been lost; however, he is making a few significant methodological errors, namely, he is beginning with a premise and then trying to "backtell," or prove that it is true in reverse, i.e. he starts with the conclusion and then looks for the proof. This approach tends to cherry pick evidence and make a good bit of assumptions.

Granted, I haven't read it, but from what I can tell, it is fairly dogmatic and overly dramatic. Ultimately, it seems to rest on his reconstruction of lost material, which can be sketchy for obvious reasons.

I would have more problems with his approach and conceptualization, as a) the very concept of "science" changed dramatically over 2000 years, and b) a discovery (i.e. heliocentric solar system) being made is different than a discovery being widely accepted. He seems to ignore the reception of scientific ideas.

The Italian edition seemed to have had a lot of praise. From scanning academic reviews, The Mathematical Gazette seems to think that it's fascinating, but maybe takes on too much (i.e. the math is great, but it also goes into mechanics, astronomy, agriculture, etc.). The Journal of Hellenic Studies finds it of interest, but thinks that it ignores the work of recent historians and uses a narrow definition of the concept of "science." A Polish journal, Zagadnienia Naukoznawstwa, cites it for the same problem of using a very restrictive definition of "Science." Likewise, Nature, reviewing the first edition, points out that we have about 1-2% of the works he is talking about, so there's obviously some guess work in his thesis. In my experience, the grander your thesis, the more guess work has the potential to muck things up.

Also, plenty of reviewers disagreed with Russo's notion that the inverse-square law (no idea what it means!), a key point of his argument, was made in the Hellenistic period.

(a scholar.google.com search will bring up a number of these sources)

In my community (history of science/mathematics), the book is very much frowned upon. It is agreed, that science made a huge leap during the second half of the hellenistic period and that it was much more advanced at the time than in the centuries that followed. Also, there can be no discussion about the fact, that we only have very little sources from that time period and moreover, that the sources that survived, seem to represent the top notch science of the time and can hardly be envisioned without any noteable precedessors (that we have no knowledge of).

Russo's explanation, nevertheless, is considered to be very troublesome. Not only is his theory about a "revolution" weak, also his handling of sourves is more than questionable. After a few examples of problematic points, Jens Hoyrup, a known expert on the history of ancient (and medieval, and....) mathematics, sums up his findings:

"Let these examples from the scores and scores of protests and question marks in the margin of the reviewer’s copy suffice. In conclusion: historians of science may learn much from the book which they did not know, but they should read carefully in order to be sure that the conclusions follow from the evidence and not from circular reasoning; they should also check in original the sources and the authorities that are used. Innocent readers should be aware that part of the attractive fable is a fable, and the extent of its veracity undetermined."

I believe, this is very much the highest opinion concerning this book I've come across so far, most people simply tell you to toss it in the bin.