Spinoza: Freedom's Messiah

by Ian Buruma

Overview

Ian Buruma explores the life and death of Baruch Spinoza, the Enlightenment thinker whose belief in freedom of thought and speech resonates in our own time
 
“An elegant, relevant biography of a vital thinker.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
 
Baruch (Benedictus) Spinoza (1632–1677) was a radical free thinker who led a life guided by strong moral principles despite his disbelief in an all-seeing God. Seen by many—Christians as well as Jews—as Satan’s disciple during his lifetime, Spinoza has been regarded as a secular saint since his death. Many contradictory beliefs have been attached to his name: rationalism or metaphysics, atheism or pantheism, liberalism or despotism, Jewishness or anti-Semitism. However, there is no question that he viewed freedom of thought and speech as essential to an open and free society.
 
In this insightful account, the award-winning author Ian Buruma stresses the importance of the time and place that shaped Spinoza, beginning with the Sephardim of Amsterdam and followed by the politics of the Dutch Republic. Though Spinoza rejected the basic assumptions of his family’s faith, and was consequently expelled from his Sephardic community, Buruma argues that Spinoza did indeed lead a Jewish life: a modern Jewish life. To Heine, Hess, Marx, Freud, and no doubt many others today, Spinoza exemplified how to be Jewish without believing in Judaism. His defense of universal freedom is as important for our own time as it was in his.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300248920
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	02/13/2024
Series:	Jewish Lives
Pages:	216
Sales rank:	227,008
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ian Buruma is Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College. He is the author of many books, including Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam and the Limits of Tolerance, and contributes to Harper’s Magazine and the New Yorker. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

A brief but forceful entry in Yale’s sprawling Jewish Lives series. . . . Mr. Buruma succeeds admirably in capturing the man as well as the essentials of his thought. Rather than unhappy and isolated, as he’s sometimes been depicted, the stoic Spinoza portrayed here practically glows with serenity and grace.”—Daniel Akst, Wall Street Journal

“Undoubtedly the most readable introduction to Spinoza’s life now available.”—Joe Moshenska, The Guardian

“In his new book, Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah, . . . Buruma observes that ‘intellectual freedom has once again become an important issue, even in countries, such as the United States, that pride themselves on being uniquely free.’”—Adam Kirsch, New Yorker

“Ours is a censorious era in which political authoritarianism and intellectual intolerance converge—as in Spinoza’s time. The situation demands a brief, agile, reflective book that recreates Spinoza’s life and work, and builds bridges with the present. We now have such a work.”—Enrique Krauze, Project Syndicate

“A fresh biography of one of the leading lights of the Enlightenment, whose views on rational thinking and secularization still resonate. . . . An elegant, relevant biography of a vital thinker.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Buruma does a magnificent job of demonstrating the enigmatic nature of Spinoza’s thought and life. Given that mystery breeds possibility, one leaves the biography feeling like Spinoza can indeed speak in many registers to many different people.”—Marc Katz, Jewish Book Council

“Ian Buruma tells the story of Spinoza’s star-crossed Jewish life engagingly, drawing on his own Dutch background to give it added relief. His jargon-free critique of Spinoza’s philosophy, while placing it in his time, also asks trenchantly what it might say about our time.”—Gary Schwartz, author of Rembrandt in a Red Beret: The Vanishings and Reappearances of a Self-Portrait

“Ian Buruma has written a wonderfully lively and instructive introduction to the great philosopher who led a ‘modern Jewish life,’ and whose struggles for freedom of thought provide a model for us today.”—David A. Bell, Princeton University

“In this short and splendid book, Ian Buruma incarnates Spinoza as an exceptional human being, but human all the same. His immensely vivid account breathes new life into Spinoza, freeing him from mummified versions of this great man.”—Avishai Margalit, author of On Betrayal

From the Publisher

★ 2023-11-11
A fresh biography of one of the leading lights of the Enlightenment, whose views on rational thinking and secularization still resonate.

In this illuminating exploration of the life and work of Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch writer and historian Buruma fashions a well-articulated argument for revisiting the seminal philosopher’s works on ethics, politics, and religion. Spinoza was born into a devout Sephardic family in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age, when many religions were tolerated but the dominant views were Calvinist. Early on, he enthusiastically imbibed the freethinking ideas in the city, learned Latin, communed with Mennonite friends who were reading Descartes, and espoused radical ideas about the nature of God. In 1656, the synagogue issued a herem, or ban, against him, essentially ostracizing him from the Jewish faith. Reliant upon his wealthy friends, he worked as a teacher and lens grinder in Rijnsburg, a village outside Leiden. Buruma looks closely at Spinoza’s central radical notion of God. “What he had done was something very few of his contemporaries could follow, for he had severed God from any transcendence,” writes the author. “Since God is self-causing, infinite, and eternal, God cannot by definition stand outside the world, any more than nature can. The entire universe is God.” Spinoza was a strong supporter of democracy, an “enemy of dogma,” and a believer in universal rationalism, above all else, serving as the inspiration for Enlightened philosophers in the next centuries. Cautious at a time of political and religious instability, he barred publication of his significant text Ethics and other works until after his death. Buruma also examines how, despite their divergent views, people from the English Romantics to Marx and Einstein later claimed to be Spinozists, and why his views on freedom of thought are still important.

An elegant, relevant biography of a vital thinker.

Kirkus Reviews