The first definitive biography of Moses Maimonides, one of the most influential intellects in all of human history, illuminates his life as a philosopher, physician, and lawgiver. Recalling such bestsellers as David McCullough's John Adams and Walter Isaacson's Einstein, MAIMONIDES is a biography on a grand scale, brilliantly explicating one man's life against the background of his time.
As a physician, Maimonides is associated with Hippocrates as a founder of modern medicine; his influence in philosophy is equal to that of Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, and Kant; in religion, he is as significant as Moses, Martin Luther, and Saint Augustine; and as a lawgiver, he has been recognized by the United States Congress as one of the greatest alongside Hammurabi and Thomas Jefferson. Now, in a dazzling work of scholarship, Joel Kraemer tells the complete story of Maimonides's rich life.
Maimonides is at once a portrait of a great historical figure and an excursion into the Mediterranean world o