How Nietzsche Came in From the Cold

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

The Spoilsports: Introduction

1. Beyond the Gothic Line: Lucca 1943-44
The Chosen Few
Standard Positions of Nietzsche Reception
Seduction of Youth
The Blue Light
Magic of Letters
The School of Higher Ignorance
2. Painstaking Care and Class Warfare: Pisa 1948
On the Joy of Being a Communist
Comrade Job
Le goût de l'archive
Everyone Else's Nietzsche
Academics in the War of Position
Travels in Germany
Drinking, Smoking, Reading
3. Operation Nietzsche: Florence 1958
Off the Beaten Track
Beauty and Horror
The Other Library
Crossing over the Abyss
Dangerous Papers
The Italian Job

4. Over the Wall and into the Desert: Weimar 1961
No Suspicious Traces
The Air in Weimar
The Craft of Reading
Nietzsche Is a Disease
The Knight of the Woeful Figure
The Politics of Facts
Down with the Philosophers!
5. Waiting for Foucault: Cerisy-la-Salle 1972
Alone Against the Nietzsche Mafia
Against Interpretation
Watching TV in Reinhardsbrunn
The Ostracized Thinker
Nietzsche's Dirty Secret
Death of an Author
Quote Unquote
6. Burn After Reading: Berlin 1985
Anarchy of Atoms
The Red Brigades of Textual Criticism
Nietzsche in Paperback
The Great Conspiracy
Philology Degree Zero
The Ring of Being

Notes
Bibliography
Index

"With erudition and great literary verve, Philipp Felsch tells a fascinating story that would seem too implausible to be true, except it is. This book is based on extensive and absolutely solid scholarship, which is deployed in an attractive and easily comprehensible way. It is full of unexpected historical information, telling observations, and intriguing suggestions, and it is a genuine pleasure to read. Given the general cultural importance of Nietzsche during the past sixty years, it should be of interest not only to philosophers, but more widely to anyone concerned with cultural studies, intellectual history or, indeed, the history and politics of the second half of the twentieth century."
Raymond Geuss, Professor Emeritus, University of Cambridge

"Most accounts of Friedrich Nietzsche cut off in 1890, at the fateful moment when he descended into what many think was madness. But of course one's life as a writer usually only really begins well after one has passed away, in the way that a legacy is shaped by future generations. This is especially the case with Nietzsche. In this insightful and ground-breaking study, Felsch helps us understand how Nietzsche became who he is today: a recuperated thinker, a philosophical inspiration to countless readers in the twenty-first century. This is intellectual history at its very best."
John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are

"Nietzsche proclaimed himself 'the unfashionable one'. But few philosophers have suffered (or enjoyed) such dramatic changes of reputation, plunging in the aftermath of the Second World War because of the taint of Nazism and then rising again after rediscovery by Paris postmodernists. Focusing on two Italians who spent decades doggedly producing a comprehensive edition of Nietzsche's writing, Felsch has produced a quirky tour de force of reception history."
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Professor, Australian Catholic University, author of The Shortest History of the Soviet Union

"I became completely immersed in the lively and provocative panoramic tour of the widely diverse creative responses to Nietzsche radiating out from the circle round Colli and Montinari. 'Perhaps,' the author notes, 'because he himself acted out the antagonistic tendencies of the age, Nietzsche played the role of a canvas onto which the entire spectrum of twentieth century ideas could be projected.' Given that sentence, I would strike out the word 'perhaps.'"
Sue Prideaux, author of I Am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche

"an accessible and interesting overview and survey of the 'redemption' of Nietzsche and his thought in the second half of the twentieth century."
Complete Review

"Philipp Felsch has produced an enjoyable peek behind the scenes of one of the most important philological projects of the postwar era... stimulating and valuable."
Times Literary Supplement

"A delight ... Erudite but not stuffily academic, crammed with fresh critical insights and much ironic humor, Felsch has the rare writing capacity to render the reading crackle with excitement."
Steven Aschheim, Marginalia Review of Books

"a terrific story"
The Spectator

Philipp Felsch is Professor of Cultural History at Humboldt University, Berlin.