The Struggle with the Daemon" is a brilliant analysis of the European psyche by the great novelist & biographer Stefan Zweig. Zweig studies three giants of German literature & thought: Friedrich Holderlin Heinrich von Kleist & Friedrich Nietzsche--powerful minds whose ideas were at odds with the scientific positivism of their age; troubled spirits whose intoxicating passions drove them mad but inspired them to great works. Born in Vienna in 1881 Stefan Zweig travelled widely living in Salzburg Austria between the wars. He enjoyed worldwide literary fame first as a poet & translator then as a biographer."