In her detailed depic­tion of the ter­ror the Inqui­si­tion inflict­ed on the lives of the Jews of Spain and Por­tu­gal, Gold­stein suc­ceeds in build­ing the case that Spin­oza devel­oped his ratio­nal­ist phi­los­o­phy in an attempt to deal with the prob­lem of Jew­ish suf­fer­ing through­out the cen­turies. Her clear­ly writ­ten, well-researched his­to­ry of this peri­od includes com­pelling accounts of indi­vid­u­als and events that form the back­drop and con­text for her expla­na­tions of Spin­ozist thought. 

My only quib­ble with this text is that the author seems to have a score to set­tle with the frumpy yeshi­va high school teacher who first intro­duced her to the Ortho­dox Jew­ish view of Spinoza’s phi­los­o­phy. These asides seem out of place in what is oth­er­wise a fine, schol­ar­ly endeavor.