Free Radical

Baruch Spinoza inspired Rebecca Goldstein.
So why is she out to betray him?

Interview by Stephen Vider


Betraying Spinoza, the fourth book in Nextbook's Jewish Encounters series, presents the 17th-century rationalist as both the first modern thinker and the original yeshiva dropout. Baruch Spinoza's rejection of traditional tenets—and his questioning of what it means to be a Jew—scandalized his Amsterdam community....

Rebecca Goldstein, a novelist and professor of philosophy at Trinity College, Goldstein dares to inhabit the mind of a man who preached objectivity, offering a lucid and often surprising exploration of how Spinoza's Sephardic roots informed his greatest work, The Ethics.

Entire Article:
http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=263
Author's Portrait:
http://log24.com/log/saved/021217-goldstein.html