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 loathe 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 emphasizes the decisive influence of Plato and of Richard Wagner on Nietzsche s attempt to reform Western culture. He also describes the devastating effect on Nietzsche s personality of his unhappy love for Lou Salom and attempts to understand why, at the age of forty-four, he went mad. This book includes a selection of more than thirty photographs of Nietzsche, his friends and his work sites. Seventeen of the philosopher s musical compositions, which are key to a deeper understanding of his intellectual project are available online.
To listen to Nietzsche's compositions, visit: http: //www.cambridge.org/us/nietzschemusic