Best Books on or by Spinoza Header

The Seven Best Books on or by Spinoza

Lennox Johnson Books

From beginner-friendly introductions to classic books by Spinoza, this page features books to suit any learning style. It’s important to note that there is no single best book on Spinoza. The best book for you will depend heavily on your preferred learning style and the amount of time/energy you’re willing to spend reading. For example, if you tend to find classic works of philosophy difficult to understand, you might want to start with a short, beginner-friendly introduction. If you prefer more depth, you can choose a more comprehensive introduction or read Spinoza for yourself.

It’s also worth noting that it is not a list of personal recommendations. Personal book recommendations tend to be highly subjective, idiosyncratic, and unreliable. This list is part of a collection of over 100 philosophy reading lists which aim to provide a central resource for philosophy book recommendations. These lists were created by searching through hundreds of university course syllabi, internet encyclopedia bibliographies, and community recommendations. Links to the syllabi and other sources used to create this list are at the end of the post. Following these links will help you quickly find a broader range of options if the listed books do not fit what you are looking for.

Here are the best books on or by Spinoza in no particular order.

Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction – Roger Scruton

Category: Short Introduction | Length: 152 pages | Published: 2002 Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction Book Cover

Publisher description: Benedict de Spinoza (1632-77) was at once the father of the Enlightenment and the last sad guardian of the medieval world. In his brilliant synthesis of geometrical method, religious sentiment, and secular science, he attempted to reconcile the conflicting moral and intellectual demands of his epoch, and to present a vision of humanity as simultaneously bound by necessity and eternally free. In this book Roger Scruton presents a clear and systematic analysis of Spinoza’s thought, and shows its relevance to today’s intellectual preoccupations.

View on Amazon


Spinoza – Michael Della Rocca

Category: General Introduction | Length: 360 pages | Published: 2008 Spinoza Book Cover

Publisher description: Renowned for his metaphysics, Spinoza made significant contributions to understanding the human mind, the emotions, moral philosophy, and political philosophy.
Beginning with an overview of Spinoza’s life, Michael Della Rocca carefully unpacks and explains Spinoza’s philosophy: his metaphysics of substance and argument at the center of his whole system that God is the sole independent substance; his account of the human mind and its relation to the body; his theory that human beings tend towards self-preservation and his most famous work, the Ethics, including the problem of free will; and his writings on the state, religion and scripture.

Della Rocca concludes with a chapter on Spinoza’s legacy and how modern philosophers, Hume, Hegel, and Nietzsche, responded to Spinoza’s challenge. Ideal for those coming to Spinoza for the first time as well as those already acquainted with his thought, Spinoza is essential reading for anyone studying philosophy.

View on Amazon


Spinoza: A Life – Steven Nadler

Category: Biography | Length: 420 pages | Published: 2018 (2e) Spinoza: A Life Book Cover

Publisher description: Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was one of the most important philosophers of all time; he was also one of the most radical and controversial. The story of Spinoza’s life takes the reader into the heart of Jewish Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and, with Spinoza’s exile from Judaism, into the midst of the tumultuous political, social, intellectual, and religious world of the young Dutch Republic. This new edition of Steven Nadler’s biography, winner of the Koret Jewish Book Award for biography and translated into a dozen languages, is enhanced by exciting new archival discoveries about his family background, his youth, and the various philosophical, political, and religious contexts of his life and works. There is more detail about his family’s business and communal activities, about his relationships with friends and correspondents, and about the development of his writings, which were so scandalous to his contemporaries.

View on Amazon


The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza – Don Garrett

Category: Overview | Length: 480 pages | Published: 1995 The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza Book Cover

Publisher description: Benedict (Baruch) de Spinoza has been one of the most inspiring and influential philosophers of the modern era, yet also one of the most difficult and most frequently misunderstood. The essays in this volume provide a clear and systematic exegesis of Spinoza’s thought informed by the most recent scholarship. They cover his metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of science, psychology, ethics, political theory, theology, and scriptural interpretation, as well as his life and influence on later thinkers.

View on Amazon


A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works – Spinoza

Category: Anthology | Length: 280 pages A Spinoza Reader: The Ethics and Other Works Book Cover

Publisher description: This anthology of the work of Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677) presents the text of Spinoza’s masterwork, the Ethics, in what is now the standard translation by Edwin Curley. Also included are selections from other works by Spinoza, chosen by Curley to make the Ethics easier to understand, and a substantial introduction that gives an overview of Spinoza’s life and the main themes of his philosophy. Perfect for course use, the Spinoza Reader is a practical tool with which to approach one of the world’s greatest but most difficult thinkers, a passionate seeker of the truth who has been viewed by some as an atheist and by others as a religious mystic….

View on Amazon


Ethics – Spinoza

Category: Classic | Length: 208 pages Ethics

Publisher description: A profoundly beautiful and uniquely insightful description of the universe, Benedict de Spinoza’s Ethics is one of the masterpieces of Enlightenment-era philosophy.

Published shortly after his death, the Ethics is undoubtedly Spinoza’s greatest work – an elegant, fully cohesive cosmology derived from first principles, providing a coherent picture of reality, and a guide to the meaning of an ethical life. Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, the emotions, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding – moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity’s place in the natural order, the nature of freedom and the path to attainable happiness. A powerful work of elegant simplicity, the Ethics is a brilliantly insightful consideration of the possibility of redemption through intense thought and philosophical reflection. The Ethics is presented in the standard translation of the work by Edwin Curley. This edition also includes an introduction by Stuart Hampshire, outlining Spinoza’s philosophy and placing it in context.

View on Amazon Read Online


Theological-Political Treatise – Spinoza

Category: Classic | Length: 296 pages Theological-Political Treatise Book Cover

Publisher description: The second edition incorporates Samuel Shirley’s pre-eminent translation with corrections of the typographical errors of its first edition, and a new general index. Seymour Feldman has contributed a new Bibliography and notes.

View on Amazon Read Online


The following sources were used to build this list:

University Course Syllabi:

Bibliographies:

Other Recommendations:

Additional Resources

You might also be interested in the following reading lists:


The Daily Idea aims to make learning about philosophy as easy as possible by bringing together the best philosophy resources from across the internet.

You can also follow The Daily Idea on Facebook and Twitter for updates.


A History of Western Philosophy in 500 Essential Quotations – Lennox Johnson

Category: Reference | Length: 145 pages | Published: 2019

Publisher’s Description: A History of Western Philosophy in 500 Essential Quotations is a collection of the greatest thoughts from history’s greatest thinkers. Featuring classic quotations by Aristotle, Epicurus, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Michel Foucault, and many more, A History of Western Philosophy in 500 Essential Quotations is ideal for anyone looking to quickly understand the fundamental ideas that have shaped the modern world.

View on Amazon