"A brilliant schoolboy in Amsterdam quickly learns to keep his ideas to himself. When he is twenty-three years old, those ideas prove so shocking and scandalous to his Jewish community that he is publicly denounced and expelled from his synagogue and neighborhood. The scandal shows no sign of waning as his ideas spread throughout seventeenth-century Europe, where he is almost universally reviled as an instrument of the devil. At the center of the storm, he lives the simplest of lives, quietly devoted to his work as a lens grinder and to his steadfast search for truth--an endeavor that paves the way for all that is best in modern democracies. He does not live to see the results of his efforts, but his ideas change the world."--Provided by publisher.
Persecution in Spain and Portugal -- The Dutch promised land -- Jewish life in Amsterdam -- Beyond the Jewish neighborhood -- Questions and potential consequences -- Doubting the immortality of the soul -- The many forces of intolerance -- The frustrated merchant -- More attempts at Jewish answers -- Exploring the wider world -- The suspected heretic -- Excommunication -- Lenses and the new science -- The Cartesian Revolution -- Launching a written philosophy -- Radical views of nature and God -- Caution and Cartesian lessons -- Plagues of body and mind -- Political upheavals and the Ethics -- Surges of religious unreason -- The Theological-Political Treatise -- Urgent reasons to publish -- The furious public response -- True freedom's gory end -- Quiet amidst the storm -- Discouraging events -- Personal encounters -- Death and its aftermath.