Lyceum & Book Club - Week 15 - Events in the Baltics
- Mar 20, 2022
- 2 min read
In our lecture this session, we are going to look at what is happening in the northern fringes of Europe at this time. While they are outside the usual scope of the areas focused on regarding the Reformation, they were affected as well.
First we will look at the Crusades in the Baltics in the opening years of the 13th Century.
Then, we will look at how the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 affected the events in the Baltics in 1533.
Next we will look at how the Reformation affected the events in the Baltics in regard to the rivalry between Lithuania-Poland Commonwealth and Russia.
And the same with Sweden - how the Reformation affected events there.
To our final section of our lecture - the Livonian War.
Book We Are Reading:
"Spinoza: A Life" by Steven Nadler - published 2001 - 407 pgs
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was one of the most important philosophers of all time; he was also arguably the most radical and controversial. This was the first complete biography of Spinoza in any language and is based on detailed archival research. More than simply recounting the story of Spinoza's life, the book takes the reader right into the heart of Jewish Amsterdam in the seventeenth century and, with Spinoza's exile from Judaism, right into the midst of the tumultuous political, social, intellectual and religious world of the young Dutch Republic. Though the book will be an invaluable resource for philosophers, historians, and scholars of Jewish thought, it has been written for any member of the general reading public with a serious interest in philosophy, Jewish history, seventeenth-century European history, and the culture of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza: A Life has recently been awarded the Koret Jewish Book Award.
We will take 4 weeks to read this book.
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