Steven Nadler is the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Rembrandt's Jews , a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize, as well as Spinoza: A Life and Spinoza's Heresy .
The centerpiece of this intellectual history is a vicious late 17th-century debate between three unlikely combatants... Nadler's superb study makes for a larger space for Leibniz, Malebranche, and Arnauld alongside such giants of the period as Descartes and Spinoza. Publishers Weekly I can't imagine a better guide to 17th-century philosophical thought. -- Michael Dirda Washington Post Book World Why did a loving God create a world marred by so much evil? In three seventeenth-century intellectuals who wrestled with this question, Nadler recognizes how a single inquiry can profoundly engage markedly different minds. -- Bryce Christensen Booklist