Nietzsche's Great Politics

Nietzsche's Great Politics by Drochon, Hugo. Paperback edition. ISBN: 9780691180694.

"A superb case of deep intellectual renewal and the most important book to have been written about [Nietzsche] in the past few years."―Gavin Jacobson, New Statesman Nietzsches 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, Nietzsches Great Politics moves away from the disputes surrounding Nietzsches 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 Nietzsches political ideas must first be understood in light of Bismarcks policies, in particular his "Great Politics," which transformed the international politics of the late nineteenth century. Nietzsches Great Politics shows how Nietzsche made Bismarcks 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 Nietzsches 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.