Desire begins with jealousy. So says Jean-Pierre Dupuy (b. 1941), French-American philosopher, professor at Stanford University and member of the French Academy of Technology. Using a variety of material - from Proust's novels and Shakespeare's plays to capsule coffee advertisements - he proves that the basis of desire is not so much imitation, as Rene Girard believed, but rather the exclusion of the subject from the world to which he would like to belong and which, precisely because its inaccessibility becomes desirable and attractive for him. The author explores the mechanism of jealousy and discovers its action in various areas of our lives: in love, in family, in career - and even in politics. The book includes an afterword by Olivier Rey (b. 1964), in which the French philosopher and specialist in transhumanism relates the theory jealousy with psychoanalysis. The cover design uses the lithograph “Jealousy” by Edvard Munch (1896)