The Birth of Desire brings together ten essays that explore the link between desire and rivalry, conflict, and paranoia. We don't desire what we want, what is good for us, or what brings us well-being or happiness. Desire imposes itself outside of our will and leaves us in the painful position of futilely defending ourselves against it. But desire is also what sets life in motion. And to that extent, it harbors within it an enigma: who sets desire in motion? In the Genesis narrative, the paranoia is twofold: a perfect garden in which there is a prohibition, and a curious transgression that occurs before humans acquire curiosity. According to the text, before eating the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve had their eyes closed, that is, they lacked the impulse of curiosity. Why, then, did Eve desire to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Drawing on Genesis and Greek mythology, the philosophy of Girard and Bataille, and the psychoanalysis of Freud, Klein, and Rank, the author unfolds a conception of desire that breaks with all pacifying idealization.