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Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity
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Customer Reviews
Rating:  - Excellent - but not really a biography
This was an interesting and very readable book, but it's much more a discussion of Jewish late medieval and Enlightenment experiences in Iberia and the Dutch Republic and how those influenced Spinoza's philosophy than a biography of Spinoza. All of those would be welcome in a good biography, but Spinoza almost seems a bit character rather than the author's focus.
Enjoy this book for what it is, but those readers looking for a general biography of Spinoza should look elsewhere.
Rating:  - Betraying Spinoza
This is a wonderfully written book by an amazing author. Anything she writes is worth reading.
Rating: - This Book Is the Reason Why Books Exist
This book is the reason why books exist. So many books are either light reading with little reward, or too dense with endless little facts that leaves one feeling overwhelmed.
Not so this book. I could tell by reading it what a fantastic philosophy professor this author must be. I learned so much by reading this book. It brought together so much of who I am as well as my interests, such as Judaism, philosophy, psychology, biography, and history. The book explained Spinoza's ideas about as clearly as can be expected for such abstract ideas, doing so in such a thoughtfully compelling manner. Even more fascinating for me was how the most rational of all philosophers, was really motivated by his deeply gentle, sensitive nature. Paradoxically, the man who was ex-communicated by his Jewish people for his heretical views, was ultimately driven to formulate his ideas by a deep love of his Jewish people.
Reading this sympathetic book about Baruch Spinoza, made me wish that he himself had read it. I wish those who ex-communicated him would have read it, too. It would have served to reconcile both himself and his ideas with his Jewish people.
Rating:  - Too much speculation
Overall, I liked the book. I enjoyed the story Goldstein had to tell, particularly her own experience encountering and teaching Spinoza. However, I think the book fell short of my expectations and was, at times, too superficial of a presentation.
I was expecting more development of the connection between Spinoza's thought and the Marrano/Jewish tradition. Also, I was looking for more development of her argument that Spinoza played a major role in "giving us modernity".
The connections here were tenuous and more guessed at than established. Goldstein didn't go into enough detail in trying to make her case on either count. We get mostly loose connections between Spinoza and Marranoism. And on Spinoza's contribution to modernity we get even less. We get: Spinoza was influential on modernity because lots of freethinkers flocked to Amsterdam. Spinoza may have influenced Locke because he went to Amsterdam and left with stronger views on rational, tolerant, republican government. Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of Spinoza's work.
Nonetheless, Goldstein does make room for the stronger point of Spinoza's influence on modernity; namely that he was the first to systematically formulate the essence of modernity: reason, individualism, and freedom.
A good book with plenty of information to chew on, but too much speculation (and if one doesn't read the footnotes, one doesn't know she is speculating).
Rating: - When philosophy become a voyage
This is a very nice (sometimes auto-)biographical novel about a philosophical voyage. The traveller is Baruch Spinoza whose influential ideas about God and separation between God and the State is narrated in a very engaging style. Rebecca Goldstein melts autobiographical, historical and philosophical levels of narration in in an enjoyable way. You are entertained and invited to think about a set of observations including Inquisition, diasporas, jews theology, Teens' life in the Big apple during the 60s, logic and qabbala.
However, this is not a philosophical book neither an introduction to philosophical concepts (some of them are presented in a debatable way); do not think you are reading a philosophical book: the best way to approach Goldstein's last work would be as a biographical reconstruction of a philosopher and his times, and how his ideas impacted on modernity.
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