Riccardo Caporali examines of all of Spinoza's works while addressing the challenges imposed by the historical circumstances at the time. Spinoza's work and its author - the philosopher and the man - go hand in hand. Focusing on Spinoza's constant preoccupation with the relationship between metaphysics and politics, Caporali shows that it takes different forms in his various major works. He highlights specific moments of this discontinuity, particularly in the transition between the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus and the Tractatus Politicus. And he weaves in comparisons and references to Machiavelli, Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Vico and Hegel, and to many contemporary interpretations of Spinoza's thought.