The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World

History

Stewart, Matthew

Europe

W.W.Norton

A marvelous rediscovery: the compelling story of the strange and noble life—and dream—of nineteenth-century utopian social revolutionary and self-taught engineer Narcís Monturiol, who invented the world’s first fully operational steam-powered submarine, not as a weapon of war but as a means of saving human life and spreading democracy. Matthew Stewart tells the story of Monturiol from his childhood to his years living the dangerous life of a revolutionary. We see him at the bloody barricades and fleeing—one step ahead of the Barcelona police—to the remote coastline of northern Catalonia. On that shore, watching teams of divers risk their lives gathering coral from the water’s depths for use in the making of jewels, candelabras, and crimson pigment, he finds the true purpose of his life. He saves a man presumed dead from drowning and conceives of a craft that will protect the divers who harvest coral—a safe, hermetically sealed underwater vessel that will make the ocean’s bounty available to the common man. Stewart writes about the building of Monturiol’s submarine: how, without scientific education (he was a lawyer by training), Monturiol read books on physics, chemistry, and biology; how he launched a hand-powered prototype submarine capable of reaching depths of sixty feet; how his efforts to gain government support for building a larger submarine were thwarted (his invention was dismissed by one official as having “no useful applications”). We see Monturiol, unwilling to give up on his dream, turn to the artists, poets, and musicians of Barcelona to help him mobilize the public to fund his project, and how he launched his second, much larger vessel five years later: the most advanced submarine of its day; at more than fifty feet long it displaced seventy-two tons and navigated reliably at depths of up to one hundred feet, with a unique system for eliminating carbon dioxide, replenishing oxygen in the interior cabin, and enabling its crew to remain underwater indefinitely. It had a steam engine for propulsion, a chemical furnace to heat the engine as it generated oxygen for the crew, external lights, portholes, and pincers for harvesting coral and other objects from the deep. It was the first true submarine; the world would not see its equal for another twenty years. And we watch as Monturiol’s revolutionary friends, making use of his utopian ideals and notions of urban planning (a term he originated), forge a new culture for Catalonia and its capital city and create the radical design that resulted in an entirely new Barcelona.

Monturiol's Dream: The Extraordinary Story of the Submarine Inventor Who Wanted to Save the World

Pantheon

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza &amp; the Fate of God in the Modern World

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Longlisted for the National Book Award. Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy? Not only the erudite Thomas Jefferson, the wily and elusive Ben Franklin, and the underappreciated Thomas Paine, but also Ethan Allen, the hero of the Green Mountain Boys, and Thomas Young, the forgotten Founder who kicked off the Boston Tea Party―these radicals who founded America set their sights on a revolution of the mind. Derided as “infidels” and “atheists” in their own time, they wanted to liberate us not just from one king but from the tyranny of supernatural religion. The ideas that inspired them were neither British nor Christian but largely ancient, pagan, and continental: the fecund universe of the Roman poet and philosopher Lucretius, the potent (but nontranscendent) natural divinity of the Dutch heretic Benedict de Spinoza. Drawing deeply on the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart pursues a genealogy of the philosophical ideas from which America’s revolutionaries drew their inspiration, all scrupulously researched and documented and enlivened with storytelling of the highest order. Along the way, he uncovers the true meanings of “Nature’s God,” “self-evident,” and many other phrases crucial to our understanding of the American experiment but now widely misunderstood.
Stewart’s lucid and passionate investigation surprises, challenges, enlightens, and entertains at every turn, as it spins a true tale and a persuasive, exhilarating argument about the founding principles of American government and the sources of our success in science, medicine, and the arts.

Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic

Americas

W.W.Norton&Company

A brilliant, not-to-be missed account of the reasons why management thinks the way it does―and why they are flawed. If CEOS, consultants, top managers, and other financial wizards are so smart, how come they screw up so badly? Why is there no correlation whatsoever between a business school education and success in business? Why might you be better off studying something as irrelevant as―philosophy? In The Management Myth, Stewart offers: <ul>
<li>An insightful romp through the entire history of thinking about management, with memorable sketches of Frederick Winslow Taylor, Elton Mayo, Peter Drucker, Michael Porter, Tom Peters, and other management celebrities</li>
<li>A devastating critique of pseudoscience in management theory, from the scientific management movement to the contemporary disciplines of strategy and organizational behavior</li>
<li>A swashbuckling account of the rise and much-anticipated fall of management consulting, laced with personal tales about cryptic PowerPoint presentations; the bait-and-hold techniques that keep clients paying to be told what they already know; and the colorful internal politics at his own ill-fated consulting firm, where rivals for power found imaginative uses for an in-house shrink</li>
<li>Historical perspective on why so many CEOs make so much more than they deserve</li>
<li>A clear explanation of why the MBA usually amounts to so much BS</li>
</ul>
With wit and wisdom, Stewart makes an electrifying case that the questions and insights of management theorists belong not to the sciences but to philosophy, and that, in the final analysis, “a good manager is nothing more or less than a good and well-educated person.”

The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong

Business & Money

Economics

"Exhilarating…Stewart has achieved a near impossibility, creating a page-turner about jousting metaphysical ideas, casting thinkers as warriors." ―Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review
Once upon a time, philosophy was a dangerous business―and for no one more so than for Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth-century philosopher vilified by theologians and political authorities everywhere as “the atheist Jew.” As his inflammatory manuscripts circulated underground, Spinoza lived a humble existence in The Hague, grinding optical lenses to make ends meet. Meanwhile, in the glittering salons of Paris, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was climbing the ladder of courtly success. In between trips to the opera and groundbreaking work in mathematics, philosophy, and jurisprudence, he took every opportunity to denounce Spinoza, relishing his self-appointed role as “God’s attorney.”
In this exquisitely written philosophical romance of attraction and repulsion, greed and virtue, religion and heresy, Matthew Stewart gives narrative form to an epic contest of ideas that shook the seventeenth century―and continues today.

"A devastating bombardment of managerial thinking and the profession of management consulting…A serious and valuable polemic." ―Wall Street Journal
Fresh from Oxford with a degree in philosophy and no particular interest in business, Matthew Stewart might not have seemed a likely candidate to become a consultant. But soon he was telling veteran managers how to run their companies.
In narrating his own ill-fated (and often hilarious) odyssey at a top-tier firm, Stewart turns the consultant’s merciless, penetrating eye on the management industry itself. The Management Myth offers an insightful romp through the entire history of thinking about management, a withering critique of pseudoscience in management theory, and a clear explanation of why the MBA usually amounts to so much BS―leading us through the wilderness of American business thought.

The Management Myth: Debunking Modern Business Philosophy

Industries

Longlisted for the National Book Award. Where did the ideas come from that became the cornerstone of American democracy?
America’s founders intended to liberate us not just from one king but from the ghostly tyranny of supernatural religion. Drawing deeply on the study of European philosophy, Matthew Stewart brilliantly tracks the ancient, pagan, and continental ideas from which America’s revolutionaries drew their inspiration. In the writings of Spinoza, Lucretius, and other great philosophers, Stewart recovers the true meanings of “Nature’s God,” “the pursuit of happiness,” and the radical political theory with which the American experiment in self-government began.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Some Remarks On The Present State Of Affairs: Respectfully Addressed To The Marquis Of Lansdowne (1831)

Kessinger Publishing

Some Remarks on the Present State of Affairs: Respectfully Addressed to the Marquis of Lansdowne

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Kessinger Pub

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stewart, Matthew. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Stewart, Matthew

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Stewart, Matthew. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World

Monturiol's Dream: The Extraordinary Story of the Submarine Inventor Who Wanted to Save the World

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World

Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic

The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong

The Courtier and the Heretic: Leibniz, Spinoza, and the Fate of God in the Modern World

The Management Myth: Debunking Modern Business Philosophy

Nature's God: The Heretical Origins of the American Republic

Some Remarks On The Present State Of Affairs: Respectfully Addressed To The Marquis Of Lansdowne (1831)

Some Remarks on the Present State of Affairs: Respectfully Addressed to the Marquis of Lansdowne