Awards
- Commended for Finalist, 2012 National Jewish Book Award in the category of History 2012
- Commended for National Jewish Book Award for Jewish History 2012
- Commended for National Jewish Book Award for Jewish History 2012.
- Joint winner for Salo Wittmayer Baron Book Prize 2012.
- Joint winner of Salo Wittmayer Baron Prize, American Academy for Jewish Research 2012
- Runner-up for National Jewish Book Award for Jewish History 2012.
Overview
Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his ""horrible heresies"" and ""monstrous deeds."" Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist.Daniel Schwartz shows that in fashioning Spinoza into ""the first modern Jew,"" generations of Jewish intellectuals--German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists--have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish cultureand a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day.
Full Product Details
Author: Daniel B. Schwartz
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.60cm
, Length: 23.50cm
Weight: 0.425kg
ISBN: 9780691162140
ISBN 10: 069116214
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 01 December 2013
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
General/trade
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Language: English
Reviews
With extensive and helpful notes, an index and a bibliography, this work is highly recommended for all academic collections that deal with Jews and Judaism in the modern age. --Marion M. Stein, Classical World
Author Information
Daniel B. Schwartz is assistant professor of history at George Washington University.
