2024.10.6 : View this Review Online | View Recent NDPR Reviews
Heinrich Meier, Nietzsche’s Legacy: Ecce Homo and The Anti-Christ, Two Books on Nature and Politics, Justin Gottschalk (tr.), University of Chicago Press, 2024, 288pp., $55.00 (hbk), ISBN 9780226751979.
Reviewed by Reviewed by Joshua Fox, Bryn Mawr College
In the final months of his productive life, Nietzsche completed several major works in rapid succession. Included among these are two books with apparently divergent aims: the polemical The Anti-Christ, which sharpens Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity; and the autobiographical Ecce Homo, which considers the developmental question, “how does one become what one is?” In his letters, however, Nietzsche presented these books as intimately related, identifying Ecce Homo as a prelude to The Anti-Christ.[1] Although The Anti-Christ was completed first, Nietzsche insisted that its publication be delayed until after Ecce Homo’s release: evidently, Nietzsche feared that The Anti-Christ would be significantly misunderstood if read in isolation from its prelude.
One might hesitate to trust Nietzsche’s judgment on this point. It was not uncommon for…
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