A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza's Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age by Steven NadlerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Steven Nadler is one of the foremost Spinoza scholars – certainly in terms of presenting Spinoza to an audience beyond academia. I’ve gained much by reading Nadler’s expositions, interpretations, and analyses of Spinoza’s work. In A Book Forged in Hell, Nadler takes us into the Theological-Political Treatise. One of things Nadler does so well is situate Spinoza in his own time and the history of philosophy: and here we see how Spinoza’s radical treatise on religion, the state, and freedom of thought fits within the social, religious, political, and philosophical milieu of his own time. While in many ways the most radical, Nadler shows us that Spinoza is not an isolated thinker in terms of the kind of critique and philosophy he is putting out there. What makes Spinoza unique was his bringing together the threads that others were pulling on into a single, integrated work that would resound through the ages.
Nadler is more focused on the intellectual and cultural history of the moment (and how that moment responded to Spinoza), but he does discuss the ideas of the work and how Spinoza’s discussion in the TPT fit within his broader philosophical project. That said, do not expect a chapter-by-chapter breakdown or a fully worked out extraction of the arguments.
A worthwhile read for those interested in Spinoza or the Enlightenment roots of political and intellectual liberty.
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