Written for students coming to Spinoza for the first time, Spinoza and the Ethics is the ideal guide to this rich and illuminating work. This GuideBook provides an overview of critical interpretations, relating the Ethics to its intellectual context, considers its historical reception; and highlights why the work continues to be relevant today. In addition, the most intriguing final sections of the Ethics, usually ignored in introductory commentaries, are given special attention and illuminated as the climax of the work.