Portable Nietzsche (Paperback)

Friedrich Nietzsche, the son and grandson of Lutheran ministers, is ranked as one of the most original and significant of modern philosophers. His father named him after King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, due to his son's birth on the ruler's birthday. Both the King and Nietzsche's father Ludwig went mad several years later; Ludwig died in 1849. Shortly thereafter, Nietzsche's mother moved the family to Naumberg following the death of her youngest son. Nietzsche's entire life is characterized by poor health, which ultimately resulted in 11 years of insanity following a collapse on the street in Turin in 1889. Following the family's move to Naumberg, Friedrich was granted free admission to a nearby boarding school where he excelled in a classical education. He then enrolled at the University of Bonn, studying theology and classical philology. He transferred after a year to Leipzig University, and gave up the religion. He would hold an associate position in classical philology before obtaining his degree, gaining full professorship in 1870. He resigned nine years later due to his health and remained in solitude in Italy and Switzerland, while writing philosophical texts. His early thought was influenced by Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner, the latter a close friend of Nietzsche's. Nietzsche's thought examined the intellectual and cultural crises in society, the "death of God," nihilism, and the questionable validity of traditional religion, metaphysics, and science within modern civilization. Aside from the many explanations for Nietzsche's insanity, he wrote over 10 books which contribute to his status as one of Germany's great writers and the most influential German thinker since Kant and Hegel.