Pocket Essentials
1 total work
Friedrich Nietzsche has been the unluckiest of philosophers. During his lifetime he was either ignored or misunderstood and he spent the last eleven years of his life in the dark prison of insanity. Since his death he has been accused of being a proto-Fascist and hailed by Hitler as his philosophical guru. What is the truth about Nietzsche and his ideas?
In this Pocket Essential Travis Elborough guides the reader through the difficulties of Nietzsche's life, his friendship with Wagner, his years as an itinerant scholar up to the terrible moment in 1889 when the sight of a horse being flogged in the streets of Turin precipitated a full-scale mental collapse, and the twilight years of madness under the care of his sinister sister, Elizabeth.
Each of Nietzsche's major works is summarised and the central concepts in his philosophy examined. Nietzsche's influence on 20th century thought is explored, as is the posthumous hijacking of his name by the Nazis.