Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-252) and index.

Preliminary Material -- Chapter One. Baruch or Benedict? Spinoza as a ‘Marrano’ -- Chapter Two. The Autonomy of the Attributes -- Chapter Three. The Idea of a Scientific Moral Philosophy -- Chapter Four. Spinoza and the Collegiants -- Chapter Five. The Idea of Religious Imposture -- Chapter Six. The Politics of the Passions -- Chapter Seven. Causation and Intelligibility in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus -- Chapter Eight. Vondel’s Noah on God and Nature -- Chapter Nine. Censorship of Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic -- Chapter Ten. Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century D utch Spinozism -- Chapter Eleven. Radical Enlightenment: A Dutch Perspective -- Chapter Twelve. Spinoza Past and Present -- Bibliography -- Index.

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Spinoza Past and Present consists of twelve essays on Benedictus de Spinoza’s Jewish background, his views on metaphysics, mathematics, religion and society. Special attention is paid to the various ways in which Spinoza’s works have been interpreted from the late seventeenth century to the present day. In particular, Spinoza’s recent popularity among advocates of the Radical Enlightenment is discussed: Van Bunge proposes a new interpretation of Spinoza’s role in the early Dutch Enlightenment.