To see the presence of Spinoza, Louis Althusser once quipped "one must at least have heard of him". The essays collected in this volume suggest that what applies to Althusser applies to this whole generation - that Spinoza is an unsuspected but very real presence in the work of contemporary phiolsophers from Deleuze and Lacan to Foucault and Derrida. This text articulates that presence, aiming to make the influence and significance of Spinoza clear for a new generation of philosophers.