The Spinoza Problem is engrossing enlightening disturbing and ultimately deeply
satisfying.-Abraham Verghese author of Cutting for StoneIn The Spinoza Problem Irvin Yalom
spins fact and fiction into an unforgettable psycho-philosophical novel. A psychiatrist with a
deep interest in philosophical issues Yalom jointly tells the story of the seventeenth-century
thinker Baruch Spinoza his philosophy and subsequent excommunication from the Jewish community
and his apparent influence on the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg whose einsatzgruppe was
dispatched during the Second World War to investigate a mysterious Spinoza Problem. Seamlessly
alternating between Golden Age Amsterdam and Nazi Germany Yalom investigates the inner lives
of these two enigmatic men in a tale of influence and anxiety the origins of good and evil
and the philosophy of freedom and the tyranny of terror.
