Friedrich Nietzsche
A Philosophical Biography

Julian Young provides the most comprehensive biography available of the life and philosophy of the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.

Julian Young (Author)

9780521871174, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 March 2010

676 pages, 32 b/w illus.
25.9 x 18.5 x 4.3 cm, 1.38 kg

'A first in the history of Nietzsche studies: a richly detailed biography written by a leading scholar of Nietzsche's philosophy. The volume nicely mixes the intriguing particulars of Nietzsche's life with intelligent analyses of his philosophical work that are well-informed, always clear, sometimes controversial, but consistently interesting. It will now be the starting place for the philosophically-minded reader of Nietzsche seeking a comprehensive treatment of the life and the work.' Brian Leiter, University of Chicago

In this beautifully written account, Julian Young provides the most comprehensive biography available today of the life and philosophy of the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Young deals with the many puzzles created by the conjunction of Nietzsche's personal history and his work: why the son of a Lutheran pastor developed into the self-styled 'Antichrist'; why this archetypical Prussian came to loath Bismarck's Prussia; and why this enemy of feminism preferred the company of feminist women. Setting Nietzsche's thought in the context of his times - the rise of Prussian militarism, anti-Semitism, Darwinian science, the 'Youth' and emancipationist movements, as well as the 'death of God' - Young emphasises the decisive influence of Plato and of Richard Wagner on Nietzsche's attempted reform of Western culture.

Part I. Youth: 1. Da campo
2. Pforta
3. Bonn
4. Leipzig
5. Schopenhauer
Part II. The Reluctant Professor: 6. Basel
7. Richard Wagner and the birth of The Birth of Tragedy
8. War and aftermath
9. Anal philology
10. Untimely Meditations
11. Aimez vous Brahms?
12. Aufwiedersehen Bayreuth
13. Sorrento
14. Human, All-Too-Human
Part III. The Nomad: 15. The wanderer and his shadow
16. Dawn
17. The Gay Science
18. The Salomé affair
19. Zarathustra
20. Nietzsche's circle of women
21. Beyond Good and Evil
22. Clearing the decks
23. The Genealogy of Morals
24. 1888
25. Catastrophe
26. The rise and fall of The Will to Power
27. The end
Postscript: Nietzsche's madness.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Biography: general [BG]