Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography

ISBN: 0521871174

Author: Young, Julian

Condition: New

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 Nietzsches 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 Bismarcks Prussia; and why this enemy of feminism preferred the company of feminist women. Setting Nietzsches 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 Nietzsches attempt to reform Western culture. He also describes the devastating effect on Nietzsches personality of his unhappy love for Lou Salomé 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 philosophers 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