'Betraying Spinoza'

'Betraying Spinoza,' by Rebecca Goldstein - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times:
"Spinoza, though the Oxford philosopher Stuart Hampshire found in him a prophet of what we now call 'science,' has confused many others who also exalted him. Novalis and Coleridge found in him the 'God-intoxicated man'; Shelley, however, discovered in him another inspiration for his essay 'The Necessity of Atheism.' Shelley was right (as almost always). Spinoza is the death of Biblical Revelation, as was Hobbes. Blake's negative litany 'Bacon, Newton and Locke' could also have been 'Spinoza, Hobbes and Christiaan Huygens,' the Dutch astronomer who preferred lenses ground by the meticulous Spinoza.Leo Strauss (never to be confused with our plague of his disciples' disciples) implicitly manifested a distaste for Spinoza, in surprising contrast to his high regard for Machiavelli."