Beautifully crafted. What seem like separate issues--Spinoza's pioneering advocacy of complete freedom of thought in religious matters; the turmoil in the Jewish community; the fateful events in Amsterdam in the closing years of Spinoza's life; the philosophical developments of the seventeenth century; Spinoza's idea of a philosophical religion utterly purged of all anthropomorphism, even to the extent of denying that God is a 'person' in any sense--come together as if by themselves (the sure sign of a fine artist!) to answer my puzzle: how to understand Spinoza the human being, a man for whom reason itself was a kind of salvation.
--Hilary Putnam, New York Observer
From the Trade Paperback edition.