Abstract

Scholars of the seventeenth century, the Enlightenment, and Benedict de Spinoza will profit from the essays collected in The Dutch Legacy. Considered as a whole, the volume makes at least two significant contributions. First, it puts firmly to rest the still prevalent idea that Spinoza was a fundamentally lonely thinker whose ideas were sui generis, sprung from the mind of a solitary genius living in social, political, and spiritual exile. Despite the fact that Spinoza's correspondence testifies to a rich network of friendships and associates, a romantic image of him persists as, in the words of Yirmiyahu Yovel, "alone in the deepest sense of the word". The image of a...