Moses Maimonides was a Renaissance man before there was a Renaissance: a great physician who served a sultan, a dazzling Torah scholar, a community leader, a daring philosopher whose greatest work--The Guide for the Perplexed--attempted to reconcile scientific knowledge with faith in God. He was a Jew living in a Muslim world, a rationalist living in a time of superstition. Eight hundred years after his death, his notions about God, faith, the afterlife, and the Messiah still stir debate; his life as a physician still inspires; and the enigmas of his character still fascinate.
Sherwin B. Nuland--best-selling author of How We Die--focuses his surgeon's eye and writer's pen on this greatest of rabbis, most intriguing of Jewish philosophers, and most honored of Jewish doctors. He gives us a portrait of Maimonides that makes his life, his times, and his thought accessible to the general reader as they have never been before.
Editorial Review(s)
"Sherwin Nuland, with the deft skill of a consummate surgeon and the knowing heart of a true humanist, reveals the wisdom and spirit of this remarkable rabbi, physician, and philosopher. This book will educate and inspire not only people of faith, but all who seek to lead a life of significance and meaning." --Dr. Jerome Groopman, Dina and Raphael Recanati Chair of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and author of The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness
About the Author
Sherwin B. Nuland is Clinical Professor of Surgery at Yale University School of Medicine and a Fellow at Yale's Institute for Social and Policy Studies. He is the author of over ten books, including the National Book Award-winning, How We Die: Reflections on Life's Final Chapter, an inquiry into the causes and modes of death that spent 34 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. In addition he is a contributor to leading publications including the New Yorker, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books.