Nietzsche in Context presents a comprehensive reinterpretation of Nietzsche’s thought, placing Nietzsche in the context of the philosophers of his own time. Offering a survey of important philosophical themes, Robin Small identifies the writer or writers with whom Nietzsche most felt himself to be engaging in dialogue. This historical dimension is complemented by original analysis and interpretation of the ideas under discussion. Nietzsche in Context takes Nietzsche scholarship into new and fruitful directions. By locating his ideas within a broader context, this book provides a comprehensive reinterpretation of Nietzsche’s thought adding to the continuing interest of his contributions to philosophy.

Friedrich Nietzsche was immensely influential and, counter to most expectations, also very well read. An essential new reference tool for those interested in his thinking, Nietzsche’s Philosophical Context identifies the chronology and huge range of philosophical books that engaged him. Rigorously examining the scope of this reading, Thomas H. Brobjer consulted over two thousand volumes in Nietzsche’s personal library, as well as his book bills, library records, journals, letters, and publications. This meticulous investigation also considers many of the annotations in his books. In arguing that Nietzsche’s reading often constituted the starting point for, or counterpoint to, much of his own thinking and writing, Brobjer’s study provides scholars with fresh insight into how Nietzsche worked and thought; to which questions and thinkers he responded; and by which of them he was influenced. The result is a new and much more contextual understanding of Nietzsche's life and thinking.

The first comprehensive interpretation of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra--an important and difficult text and the only book Nietzsche ever wrote with characters, events, setting, and a plot. Laurence Lampert's chapter-by-chapter commentary on Nietzsche's magnum opus clarifies not only Zarathustra's narrative structure but also the development of Nietzsche's thinking as a whole. "An impressive piece of scholarship. Insofar as it solves the riddle of Zarathustra in an unprecedented fashion, this study serves as an invaluable resource for all serious students of Nietzsche's philosophy. Lampert's persuasive and thorough interpretation is bound to spark a revival of interest in Zarathustra and raise the standards of Nietzsche scholarship in general."--Daniel W. Conway, Review of Metaphysics "A book of scholarship, filled with passion and concern for its text."--Tracy B. Strong, Review of Politics "This is the first genuine textual commentary on Zarathustra in English, and therewith a genuine reader's guide. It makes a significant and original contribution to its field."--Werner J. Dannhauser, Cornell University "This is a very valuable and carefully wrought study of a very complex and subtle poetic-philosophical work that provides access to Nietzsche's style of presenting his thought, as well as to his passionately affirmed values. Lampert's commentary and analysis of Zarathustra is so thorough and detailed. . . that it is the most useful English-language companion to Nietzsche's 'edifying' and intriguing work."--Choice Selected as one of Choice's outstanding academic books for 1988

'My humanity is a constant self-overcoming' Friedrich Nietzsche Nietzsche's thinking revolves around a new and striking concept of humanity - a humanity which has come to terms with the death of God and practises the art and science of living well, free of the need for metaphysical certainties and moral absolutes. How, then, are we to live? And what do we love? Keith Ansell-Pearson introduces the reader to Nietzsche's distinctive philosophical style and to the development of his thought. Through a series of close readings of Nietzsche's aphorisms he illuminates some ofhis best-known but often ill-understood ideas, including eternal recurrence and the superman, the death of God and the will to power, and brings to light the challenging nature of Nietzsche's thinking on key topics such as beauty, truth and memory. Extracts are taken from a range of Nietzsche's work, including Human, All Too Human, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and On the Genealogy of Morality.

Roughly formulating many of the themes he later developed at length, Nietzsche sketches concepts such as the will to power, eternal recurrence, and self-overcoming and links them to specific pre-Platonics." "This translation, complete with Nietzsche's own extensive sidenotes and philological citations, is accompanied by a prologue, introductory essay, and extensive translator's commentary.".

Perhaps no philosopher is more of a conundrum than Nietzsche, the solitary rebel, poet, wayfarer, anti-revolutionary Aufklärer and theorist of aristocratic radicalism. His accusers identify in his ‘superman’ the origins of Nazism, and thus issue an irrevocable condemnation; his defenders pursue a hermeneutics of innocence founded ultimately in allegory. In a work that constitutes the most important contribution to Nietzschean studies in recent decades, Domenico Losurdo instead pursues a less reductive strategy. Taking literally the ruthless implications of Nietzsche's anti-democratic thinking – his celebration of slavery, of war and colonial expansion, and eugenics – he nevertheless refuses to treat these from the perspective of the mid-twentieth century. In doing so, he restores Nietzsche’s works to their complex nineteenth-century context, and presents a more compelling account of the importance of Nietzsche as philosopher than can be expected from his many contemporary apologists. Translated by Gregor Benton. With an Introduction by Harrison Fluss. Originally published in Italian by Bollati Boringhieri Editore as Domenico Losurdo, Nietzsche, il ribelle aristocratico: Biografia intellettuale e bilancio critico, Turin, 2002.

This book is an attempt to make sense of the tension in Nietzsche’s work between the unashamedly egocentric and the apparently mystical. While scholars have tended to downplay one or other of these aspects, it is the author’s contention that the two are not only compatible but mutually illuminating. This book demonstrates Nietzsche’s sustained interest in mysticism from the time of The Birth of Tragedy right through to the end of his productive life. This book argues against situating Nietzsche’s religious thought in the context of Buddhist or Christian mystical traditions, demonstrating the inadequacy of attempts to mediate between Nietzsche and Meister Eckhart and the Bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. Rather, it is argued that Nietzsche’s egoism and mysticism are best understood in the intellectual context which he himself avowed, according to which his “ancestors” were Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, and Goethe.