Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah 1st Edition by Ian Buruma 9780300277180 0300277180

Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah 1st Edition by Ian Buruma – Ebook Instant Download/Delivery ISBN(s): 9780300277180,0300277180

Product details:

• ISBN 10: 0300277180
• ISBN 13: 9780300277180 
• Author: Ian Buruma

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.

Table contents:

Part 1. Everyone’s Spinoza
Part 2. The Safe Place
Part 3. Born to Strife
Part 4. Driven Out of the Temple
Part 5. The Dark Years
Part 6. Far from the Madding Crowd
Part 7. Secular Salvation
Part 8. Radical Enlightenment
Part 9. Mob Rage
Part 10. Lonely at the Top
Part 11. His Last Breath
Part 12. Spinozism

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