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.
Author
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Ph.D., Philology, Leipzig University, 1869) was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. He was interested in the enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed in life, creativity, power, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation,” which involves a questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers along with Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
