1
of
1
Spinoza
Freedom's Messiah
Series: Jewish Lives
Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.
Check link for latest rating. ( 225 ratings, 28 reviews)
Brief Description
Ian Buruma explores the life and death of Baruch Spinoza, the Enlightenment thinker whose belief in freedom of thought and speech resonates in our own time. Baruch (Benedictus) Spinoza (1632–1677) was a radical free thinker who led a life guided by strong moral principles despite his...
Read More
Format: Hardback
TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK
Please add to wishlist to be notified when back in stock
Sorry, we're currently out of stock of Spinoza. Please add to your Wishlist and we'll send you an email as soon as it's back in stock.
Ian Buruma explores the life and death of Baruch Spinoza, the Enlightenment thinker whose belief in freedom of thought and speech resonates in our own time
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
feedback is welcome!
Description
Ian Buruma explores the life and death of Baruch Spinoza, the Enlightenment thinker whose belief in freedom of thought and speech resonates in our own time.
Baruch (Benedictus) Spinoza (1632–1677) was a radical free thinker who led a life guided by strong moral principles despite his disbelief in an all-seeing God. Seen by many—Christians as well as Jews—as Satan’s disciple during his lifetime, Spinoza has been regarded as a secular saint since his death. Many contradictory beliefs have been attached to his name: rationalism or metaphysics, atheism or pantheism, liberalism or despotism, Jewishness or anti-Semitism. However, there is no question that he viewed freedom of thought and speech as essential to an open and free society.
In this insightful account, the award-winning author Ian Buruma stresses the importance of the time and place that shaped Spinoza, beginning with the Sephardim of Amsterdam and followed by the politics of the Dutch Republic. Though Spinoza rejected the basic assumptions of his family’s faith, and was consequently expelled from his Sephardic community, Buruma argues that Spinoza did indeed lead a Jewish life: a modern Jewish life. To Heine, Hess, Marx, Freud, and no doubt many others today, Spinoza exemplified how to be Jewish without believing in Judaism. His defense of universal freedom is as important for our own time as it was in his.
Series: Jewish Lives
View all-
Alfred Dreyfus
An insightful new biography of the central figure in the Dreyfus Affair, focused on the man himself and based on newly accessible documents. On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus’s cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob shouting “Death to Judas!” In Alfred Dreyfus, Maurice Samuels provides readers with an entirely new insight into Dreyfus himself—from the point...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
The Many Lives of Anne Frank
A revealing biography of Anne Frank, exploring both her life and the impact of her extraordinary diary "Trenchant. . . . An essential look at the diarist's legacy."—Publishers Weekly In this innovative biography, Ruth Franklin explores the transformation of Anne Frank (1929–1945) from ordinary teenager to icon, shedding new light on the young woman whose diary of her years in...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Herod the Great
A vivid account of the political triumphs and domestic tragedies of the Jewish king Herod the Great during the turmoil of the Roman revolution Herod the Great (73–4 BCE) was a phenomenally energetic ruler who took advantage of the chaos of the Roman revolution to establish himself as a major figure in a changing Roman world and transform the landscape...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Abraham
The story of Abraham, the first Jew, portrayed as two lives lived by one person, paralleling the contradictions in Judaism throughout its history. In this new biography of Abraham, Judaism's foundational figure, Anthony Julius offers an account of the origins of a fundamental struggle within Judaism between scepticism and faith, critique and affirmation, thinking for oneself and thinking under the...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Abraham Joshua Heschel
A biography of the rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who became a symbol of the marriage between religion and social justice “When I marched in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.” So said Polish-born American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972) of his involvement in the 1965 Selma civil rights march alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. Heschel, who spoke with a...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Admiral Hyman Rickover
A riveting exploration of the brilliant, combative, and controversial “Father of the Nuclear Navy” “A superb and even-handed treatment of a complex, brilliant, and driven admiral who inspired both awe and loathing across the Navy he fundamentally reshaped.”—Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Commander, NATO, and author of 2034 Known as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy,” Admiral Hyman George Rickover...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Alfred Dreyfus
An insightful new biography of the central figure in the Dreyfus Affair, focused on the man himself and based on newly accessible documents. "An admirable introduction not only to its nominal subject but to ... great historical events."—Geoffrey Wheatcroft, New York Review of Books On January 5, 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus's cries of innocence were drowned out by a mob...Paperback$2899Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Amos Oz
An intimate portrait illuminating the life and work of Amos Oz, the award-winning Israeli writer and activist Amos Oz (1939–2018) was one of Israel’s most prolific and prominent writers, as well as a regular contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was the author of dozens of novels, essay collections, and novellas written between 1965 and shortly before his...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Arthur Miller
A great theatre critic brings twentieth-century playwright Arthur Miller's dramatic story to life with bold and revealing new insights. "Lahr's cogent analyses are revelatory... He does not reduce the work to the life, but shows how it explains the life from which it emerges."—Willard Spiegelman, Wall Street Journal New Yorker critic Lahr shines in this searching account of the life...Paperback$3099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Ayn Rand
A deeply researched biography of the prominent and divisive writer Ayn Rand, whose pro-capitalist novels and nonfiction have influenced three generations of Americans. "Excellent and succinct."—Jim Kelly, Air Mail. Biographer Alexandra Popoff traces the life and creative achievement of Ayn Rand (1905–1982), one of America's most provocative writers, whose best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have enjoyed impressive longevity....Hardback$4499Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Becoming Elijah
The story of the prophet Elijah’s transformation from fierce zealot to compassionate hero and cherished figure in Jewish folklore “In a series on Jewish Lives, this volume is about the Jewish life—the one that goes on forever. Becoming Elijah blends meticulous scholarship with bold literary and poetic imagination. Don’t miss it!”—Arthur Green, author of Judaism for the World "The author’s...Hardback$4099Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
Becoming Freud
From one of the world’s foremost authorities on Sigmund Freud comes a strikingly original biography of the father of psychoanalysis. Becoming Freud is the story of the young Freud—Freud up until the age of fifty—that incorporates all of Freud’s many misgivings about the art of biography. Freud invented a psychological treatment that involved the telling and revising of life stories,...Paperback$2599Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780300248920
Publisher: Yale University Press
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 26 March 2024
Country: United States
Imprint: Yale University Press
Illustration: 1 b-w illus.
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 146.0mm
Height: 210.0mm
Weight: 250g
Pages: 216
About the Author
Ian Buruma is Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College. He is the author of many books, including Murder in Amsterdam: Liberal Europe, Islam and the Limits of Tolerance, and contributes to Harper’s Magazine and the New Yorker. He lives in New York City.
Also by Ian Buruma
View all-
Year Zero
Many books have been written, and continue to be written, about the Second World War: military histories, histories of the Holocaust, the war in Asia, or collaboration and resistance in Europe. Few books have taken a close look at the immediate aftermath of the worldwide catastrophe. Drawing on hundreds of eye-witness accounts and personal stories, this sweeping book examines the...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3299Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
A Tokyo Romance
When Ian Buruma arrived in Tokyo as a young film student in 1975, he found a feverish and surreal metropolis in the midst of an economic boom, where everything seemed new and history only remained in fragments. Through his adventures in the world of avant-garde theatre, his encounters with carnival acts, fashion photographers, and moments on-set with Akira Kurosawa, Buruma...Paperback$2600Elsewhere:$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Murder in Amsterdam
It was the emblematic crime of our moment: On a cold November day in Amsterdam, an angry young Muslim man, Mohammed Bouyeri, the son of Moroccan immigrants, shot and killed the celebrated and controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, great-grandnephew of Vincent and iconic European provocateur, for making a movie with the vocally anti-Islam Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali...Paperback$3000Elsewhere:$3299Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Collaborators
The Collaborators is at once fascinating and frightening, an apposite tract for our increasingly mendacious, treacherous times." - John Banville On the face of it, the three characters here seem to have little in common - aside from the fact that each committed wartime acts that led some to see them as national heroes, and others as villains. All three...Hardback$4999Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Their Promised Land
Ian Buruma's maternal grandparents, Bernard and Winifred (Bun & Win), wrote to each other regularly throughout their life together. The first letters were written in 1915, when Bun was still at school at Uppingham and Win was taking music lessons in Hampstead. They were married for more than sixty years, but the heart of their remarkable story lies within the...Paperback$3299Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Wages of Guilt
With a new introduction 'A comparative study of great subtlety and intelligence' Spectator In this highly original and now classic text, Ian Buruma explores and compares how Germany and Japan have attempted to come to terms with their violent pasts, and investigates the painful realities of living with guilt—and with its denial. As he travels through both countries, Buruma encounters...Paperback$3699Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Spinoza
Ian Buruma explores the life and death of Baruch Spinoza, the Enlightenment thinker whose belief in freedom of thought and speech resonates in our own time. A New Yorker "Best Book of 2024" Selection "An elegant, relevant biography of a vital thinker." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Baruch (Benedictus) Spinoza (1632–1677) was a radical free thinker who led a life...Paperback$2899Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 3-4 weeks -
The Churchill Complex
Rich and rewarding - Wall Street Journal It is impossible to understand the last 75 years of British and American history without understanding the Anglo-American relationship, and specifically the bonds between presidents and prime ministers. FDR of course had Churchill; JFK famously had Macmillan, his consigliere during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Reagan found his ideological soul mate in Thatcher, and...Paperback$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The Collaborators
A multiple biography with overlapping chronology is a tricky feat and Buruma pulls it off magnificently. The Times said, "On the face of it, the three characters here seem to have little in common - aside from the fact that each committed wartime acts that led some to see them as national heroes, and others as villains. All three were...Paperback$2799Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
The China Lover
'An extraordinary story... told wonderfully well' Victoria James, Independent When Sidney Vanoven is sent to occupied Japan, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, it is his dream posting. By day, he works in the censor's office watching Japanese films; at night he immerses himself in the sensual pleasures of Tokyo. His job leads him into the circle...Paperback$2899Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks -
Stay Alive
In 1939, when Ian Buruma's epic opens, Berlin has been under Nazi rule for six years, and its 4.3 million people have made their accommodations to the regime, more or less. When war broke out with Poland in September, what was most striking at first was how little changed. Unless you were Jewish. Then life, already hard, was soon to...Hardback$5999Unit price /UnavailableAvailableShips in 4-6 weeks
More from Biography & Memoir
View all-
New ReleaseDogs, Boys and Other Things I've Cried About
From the social media superstar behind @SimonSits, Isabel Klee--known for her heartwarming tales of dog rescue--comes an utterly winning memoir about a twentysomething woman's search for true love in New York City and the dogs who helped her find it. A Jersey girl by birth, Isabel Klee had always wanted to live in New York City. At age 20, she...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
Stakes
Read our interview with author Noelle McCarthy! A darkly funny, sparkling follow-up to the author’s bestselling memoir Grand. You have to invite him in. You have to want the vampire’s badness in the house with you. Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$4000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
New ReleaseFamesick
Chronicling the tumultuous decade between the premiere of Girls to her 2021 shotgun wedding (minus the baby, because she has no uterus), Lena Dunham takes us through her journey with her trademark mix of humor, unsparing honesty, and keen eye for detail. We peek behind the scenes - of her work, her family, her relationships, and her battle to reclaim her body...Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$3500Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
New ReleaseBuilt for This
Raised among strong women, butcher's benches, and hard ideas about what men are meant to be, Brad Poulter grows up knowing he's different long before he has the words for it. But in late '90s small-town New Zealand, 'different' isn't discussed, it's managed. Joining the Royal New Zealand Navy offers escape, certainty, and belonging. The rules are clear, the uniform...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
Even the Good Girls Will Cry
Thanks to a thrown beer bottle and a fan letter to a P.O. box, Melissa Auf der Maur's first band scored an opening slot for the Smashing Pumpkins in her bohemian home town, Montreal. Sensing Melissa's talent, Billy Corgan recommended her to Courtney Love. Whisked from her local scene, Melissa joined Hole just after the deaths of Kurt Cobain and...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
New ReleaseAn Ocean and a Day
An utterly riveting, moving and poignant memoir of grief and loss that will speak to anyone who's ever lost someone they love. An Ocean and a Day is Hannah Richell's personal account of losing her husband, Matt, in a surfing accident on Tamarama beach in 2014. It is the story of the grief journey she travelled over the first two...Paperback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
A Place to Stand
A Place to Stand by Clare Ward is a profound memoir that delves into the life of a country doctor living and working in the Hokianga Harbour area in the far north of Aotearoa New Zealand. This region is sparsely populated and poses numerous health challenges. This thoughtful account details Clare’s thirty-year career, highlighting the people she works with and...Hardback$3199Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableBackorderShips early August -
New ReleaseRule of Lies
Written with all the pace and energy of a John Grisham novel … An incredible true story and a great read! BILL BROWDER, author of Red Notice and Freezing Order An American lawyer’s brilliant, propulsive story of witnessing and playing a part in the transformation of Russia under Yeltsin and Putin. A true tale of fascinating personalities, criminal intrigue, harrowing...Paperback$2999Elsewhere:$3799Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
New ReleaseRory
The New York Times bestseller The #1 Irish Times bestseller The definitive biography of Rory McIlroy, the most important, popular and confounding player of the post-Tiger era. Rory McIlroy contains multitudes. The child of a working-class family from a small town in a war-torn homeland now commutes to work in his own private jet and counts billionaires as confidants. He can overwhelm a golf...Paperback$3699Elsewhere:$4199Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
New ReleaseTe Kaikaukau | The Swimmer
Novelist, memoirist and playwright Witi Ihimaera – author of Pounamu, Pounamu and The Whale Rider – decided, at the age of eighty, to dive back into the water and spend a year full-time at Te Wānanga Takiura, immersing himself in his own language, in te reo Māori. This book tells the story of this kaikaukau, this swimmer, and his year...Paperback$3500Elsewhere:$4500Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
New ReleaseThis Is Me: A Reckoning
This is a searingly honest and moving memoir from double Golden Globe-nominatedactress Hayden Panettiere. Hayden Panettiere has been in front of the camera since before she could talk. She roseto stardom typecasted as Hollywood's blonde girl next door. As a young celebrity,naysayers were certain she would crash and burn. Not one to disappoint, she did.Hayden Panettiere's irreverent memoir satisfies our...Paperback$3200Elsewhere:$3999Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday -
New ReleaseBeyond Life and Death
From martial arts icon and global film star Jet Li comes a revelatory, profound and inspiring guide to self-mastery and spiritual wisdom, distilled into 10 essential life lessons. Martial arts legend and international movie star Jet Li distils 10 powerful insights from his iconic career, his personal life and philosophies, and his 30-year Buddhist practice. Jet Li's story defies legend....Paperback$3299Elsewhere:$4000Unit price /UnavailableIn StockShips Monday
Why buy from us?
Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!
Service & Delivery
Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 80,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.
Auckland Bookstore
We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.
Our Gifting Service
Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.
