Product Description

This classic is the benchmark against which all modern books about Nietzsche are measured. When Walter Kaufmann wrote it in the immediate aftermath of World War II, most scholars outside Germany viewed Nietzsche as part madman, part proto-Nazi, and almost wholly unphilosophical. Kaufmann rehabilitated Nietzsche nearly single-handedly, presenting his works as one of the great achievements of Western philosophy.

Responding to the powerful myths and countermyths that had sprung up around Nietzsche, Kaufmann offered a patient, evenhanded account of his life and works, and of the uses and abuses to which subsequent generations had put his ideas. Without ignoring or downplaying the ugliness of many of Nietzsche's proclamations, he set them in the context of his work as a whole and of the counterexamples yielded by a responsible reading of his books. More positively, he presented Nietzsche's ideas about power as one of the great accomplishments of modern philosophy, arguing that his conception of the "will to power" was not a crude apology for ruthless self-assertion but must be linked to Nietzsche's equally profound ideas about sublimation. He also presented Nietzsche as a pioneer of modern psychology and argued that a key to understanding his overall philosophy is to see it as a reaction against Christianity.

Many scholars in the past half century have taken issue with some of Kaufmann's interpretations, but the book ranks as one of the most influential accounts ever written of any major Western thinker.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #383076 in Books
• Published on: 1975-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 532 pages

Review
Mr. Kaufmann has produced what may be called the definitive study of Nietzsche's life and thought-an informed, scholarly, and lustrous work.
(The New Yorker )

Customer Reviews

Absolutely suberb.
Well, what can I say ... this is an absolute masterpiece (fourth edition: thoroughly revised etc.).

Kaufmann is acknowledged in many quarters as an authoritative source as far as Nietzsche's work is concerned. In this book he provides, in addition to valuable critical analyses of much of Nietzsche's work, important backround information that proves extremely valuable; it facilitates early understanding of Nietzsche's work proper.

As an avid Nietzsche reader, I unreservedly recommend this book, as, indeed, I do with all of Kaufmann's work, in that it gives an unsurpassed and very necessary (this will become apparent if you buy it) introduction to the great man's work.

Five stars without hesitation! If you plan on reading Nietzsche this is a fantastic introductory text, which, I'm sure you will come to agree, is thoroughly indespensible.