RARE psychological biography of Herod I, also known as Herod the Great who was a Roman client king of Judea, referred to as the Herodian kingdom. Written by an eminent Israeli academic and writer who was a professor at Tel Aviv University - Aryeh Kasher (1935-2011), in collaboration with Eliezer Witztum (b.1949) - an eminent psychiatrist and professor at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the book stands as an antithesis to Avraham Shalit`s influential monograph "Herod the Great: the man and his deed", Bialik Institute (third edition - 1964), where the author described Herod as king who contributed a great deal to the Jewish People due to his monumental building enterprises. In his study, Kasher chose to concentrate on another aspect in Herod`s personality - his murderousness, and was assisted by professor Witztum who used the psychological research tools in order to decipher the complex personality of Herod and diagnose his illness as paranoid personality disorder and inferiority complex, which shows why he murdered his closest relatives and anyone whom he suspected by the least sign of treason, including his wife and three sons. The manuscript of the book won the Bahat Prize given for distinguished reference books by the University of Haifa in 2006. 235x160mm. XX+514 pages. Light blue cloth Hardcover with white lettering on cover and spine. Cover corners, rear cover bottom edge and spine edges bumped. Spine slightly dirty and faded. [SUMMARY]: This pioneering and comprehensive study of the most fascinating and mysterious figures in ancient history is otherwise in very good condition.