A scholar of the Bible and a failed merchant, a Jewish heretic and an eminent Dutch intellectual who wrote in Latin—and, to earn his living, a lens grinder—Baruch (Bento, Benedictus) Spinoza is considered today one of the most remarkable thinkers of all time, perhaps the most radical and controversial of philosophers.

Born into the Sephardic community of Amsterdam, Spinoza was abruptly excommunicated from it in 1656, at the age of twenty-four—"May he be cursed by day and cursed by night, cursed when he lies down and cursed when he rises up. May he be cursed when he goes out and cursed when he comes in. The Lord will have no mercy on him," could be heard in the synagogue. He dedicated the rest of his life to seeking truth, moral rectitude, and freedom, as well as to developing his ideas on "true religion" and on a secular and tolerant state.

In this magnificent biography, now revised and updated, Steven Nadler skillfully intertwines Spinoza's human material and philosophy with the tumultuous political, social, intellectual, and religious world of the young and prosperous Dutch Republic in which he lived.