About the Author

David Morrison was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1941. In 1962, he earned his B.A. in history and then entered the University of Tennessee Medical School, receiving his M.D. in 1965. He served in Vietnam as a Battalion Surgeon, where he was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor. In 1969, Morrison returned to school and completed his residency in Psychiatry in 1972. He moved to Israel in 1992 with his late wife, Jo Ann Hess Morrison. Morrison is the author of Heroes, Antiheroes and the Holocaust: American Jewry and Historical Choice, Lies: Israel's Secret Service and the Rabin Murder, and The Gush

Reviews

After getting into this book, I showed it to a couple people. Three people, three reactions (a little under par- youd expect four opinions from three Jews). These letters were a delight for me, an escorted stroll through the back alleys of history. It illuminated little-known relationships (and almost relationships) between important figures in different worlds that arent often studied in the same context (e.g., secular philosophy or psychology and Torah law).
Someone else I showed it to asked, Who cares? Indeed, it is a valid question for some to ask of such an esoteric topic as this, but ultimately, this is an important book in its depiction of the dawn of the modern (Modern?) Jewish identity and different attitudes towards historiography.
A relative I showed it to, who is a longtime scholar of Nietzsche, dismissed the book. While he didnt dispute the distortions that have been made of Nietzsches views, he felt that the author carries his fantasy of letters to the philosopher too far, and imbues in him ideas that conflict with some of Nietzsches doctrines. I cant speak to this issue, as I am a Nietzsche newbie, but in the end, I can look past this, as the audience of these letters is not the long-gone philosopher. This correspondence is a useful, if occasionally awkward, device to engage the reader
This book will not have a wide audience, but I suspect it will have a deep one.
David Statman, posting to LibraryThing.com and Amazon.com
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