40 pages into Ian Buruma’s fascinating biography of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, some very modern language leaps from the page. “When people are banished from their community,” Buruma ...

Spinoza was one of the founding fathers of the Idealist school of philosophy, and was described by Bertrand Russell as, "the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers". Brauch Spinoza was ...

Mr. Buruma is the author of “Spinoza: Freedom’s Messiah.” The Enlightenment philosopher Baruch Spinoza almost died for his ideals one day in 1672. Spinoza, a Sephardic Jew born in Amsterdam in 1632, ...

Spinoza probably lives in the memory of those who took an introduction to philosophy course as one of those strangely ambitious, God’s-eye-view metaphysicians who thought they could explain everything ...

Is there room for a novel about Baruch Spinoza in a publishing market crowded with supernatural creatures and kinky romance? Irvin D. Yalom thinks so. In fact, there’s plenty of room to describe the ...

Baruch Spinoza’s life was a product of paradox. The 17th century, in Europe, was a time of both barbarous sectarianism and unprecedented human achievement. It was an era of new ideas — ideas that ...

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