Commentary

• Persecution and the Art of Writing

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  Strauss, Leo. Persecution and the Art of Writing. Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1988.
  From the Publisher: “The essays collected in Persecution and the Art of Writing all deal with one problem—the relation between philosophy and politics. Here, Strauss sets forth the thesis that many philosophers, especially political philosophers,… More

• The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World

  - Stewart, Matthew. The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.
  From the Publisher: “Philosophy in the late seventeenth century was a dangerous business. No careerist could afford to know the reclusive, controversial philosopher Baruch de Spinoza. Yet the wildly ambitious genius Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who… More

• Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity

  - Goldstein, Rebecca. Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity. New York: Schocken, 2009.
  From the Publisher: “In 1656, Amsterdam’s Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza, and, at the age of twenty–three, he became the most famous heretic in Judaism. He was already germinating a secularist challenge to religion that would be as… More