Descrizione

8vo, Nietzsche s impact on the world of culture, philosophy, and the arts is uncontested, but his political thought remains mired in controversy. By placing Nietzsche back in his late-nineteenth-century German context, Nietzsche s Great Politics moves away from the disputes surrounding Nietzsche s appropriation by the Nazis and challenges the use of the philosopher in postmodern democratic thought. Rather than starting with contemporary democratic theory or continental philosophy, Hugo Drochon argues that Nietzsche s political ideas must first be understood in light of Bismarck s policies, in particular his Great Politics, which transformed the international politics of the late nineteenth century. Nietzsche s Great Politics shows how Nietzsche made Bismarck s notion his own, enabling him to offer a vision of a unified European political order that was to serve as a counterbalance to both Britain and Russia. This order was to be led by a good European cultural elite whose goal would be to encourage the rebirth of Greek high culture. In relocating Nietzsche s politics to their own time, the book offers not only a novel reading of the philosopher but also a more accurate picture of why his political thought remains so relevant today.