Description: A biography of the boldest and most unsettling of the early modern philosophers, Spinoza, examining the man's life, relationships, career, and writings, while forcing us to rethink how we previously understood his reception in the fields of philosophy, religion, ethics, and political theory in his own time and in the years following his death.
Review Quotes: "Monumental... a brilliant biography...Jonathan Israel has more than done justice to this ultimately elusive genius" -- Daniel Johnson, The Critic
"Definitive" -- Andrew Robinson, Nature"This biography is a worthy conclusion to Israel's immense Enlightenment project." -- Michiel Leezenberg, NRC Handelsblad"This monumental work should be added to the short list of modern biographies of Baruch Spinoza (1632-77)...Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty" -- Choice"Israel has done a great deal to illuminate Spinoza's unwavering rationalism, drawing out its revolutionary implications and charting its clandestine dissemination and profound impact on European thought." -- Carlos Fraenkel, Times Literary Supplement"[A] tour-de-force... [a] meticulous survey of Spinoza's background, the Dutch political history, and his intellectual life in the seventeenth century." -- Nicholas Morton, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books"With the publication of Spinoza, Life and Legacy, Israel has given us a book as vast as Spinoza's god... Israel, astonishingly prolix, passionate, and exhaustive, has created around Spinoza a vast fresco of an era, densely populated with characters, genealogies, situations, ideas, episodes, and conflicts." -- Enrique Krauze, Project Syndicate"In his new biography of Spinoza, Jonathan Israel shows his inimitable ability to bring together historical events, life details, texts, and ideas in a comprehensive narrative structured by the rhythms of time and place and the historiographical-philosophical perspective that also provided the framework for his Enlightenment tetralogy. This monumental biography is the result of a lifelong study of Spinoza's work in various editions and translations, contemporary tracts and pamphlets, and scholarly commentary." -- Sonja Lavaert, Journal of The History of Philosophy