The Essential Nietzsche

by Friedrich Nietzsche, Heinrich Mann (Editor)

A prominent intellectual of the Weimar era, Heinrich Mann was a leading authority on Nietzsche. This volume consists of Mann's selections of highlights from the philosopher's works, along with an introduction that explains their significance to modern readers.
Key excerpts from Nietzsche's books include passages from The Birth of Tragedy, Thoughts Out of Season, The Dawn of the Day, The Joyful Wisdom, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, The Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, and The Will to Power. For ease of reference, Mann has arranged the text in sections corresponding to Nietzsche's views on science, philosophy, and truth; his critiques of culture — the use and abuse of history, Europeans and Germans, Wagner, the genealogy of morals, and nihilism; his concept of the world without God, including the birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music, the true and the apparent world, and eternal recurrence; and his confessions.

Genres: Philosophy, Psychology

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1887

About the author

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.

Reviews

[Stephen Simpson · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be very clear, this is "1-star" for this particular collection, not Nietzsche's work(s).
While Heinrich Mann enjoys a very high regard as a scholar of Neitzsche, I find him a pretentious d-bag, and his introductory comments (roughly half the book) are insufferable. The passages selected are also questionable in my view, and absolutely not in keeping with the "essential" writings of Nietzsche.

[Emberwrought · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great selection of Nietzsche's writings.

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

this is actually the worst translation of Nietzsche ever fathomable but it's funny asf

[Dan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me. Lots of words and repeated thoughts but little substance.