Nietzsche's Earth: Great Events, Great Politics

by Gary Shapiro

We have Nietzsche to thank for some of the most important accomplishments in intellectual history, but as Gary Shapiro shows in this unique look at Nietzsche’s thought, the nineteenth-century philosopher actually anticipated some of the most pressing questions of our own era. Putting Nietzsche into conversation with contemporary philosophers such as Deleuze, Agamben, Foucault, Derrida, and others, Shapiro links Nietzsche’s powerful ideas to topics that are very much on the contemporary globalization, the nature of the livable earth, and the geopolitical categories that characterize people and places.
           
Shapiro explores Nietzsche’s rejection of historical inevitability and its idea of the end of history. He highlights Nietzsche’s prescient vision of today’s massive human mobility and his criticism of the nation state’s desperate efforts to sustain its exclusive rule by declaring emergencies and states of exception. Shapiro then explores Nietzsche’s vision of a transformed garden earth and the ways it sketches an aesthetic of the Anthropocene. He concludes with an explanation of the deep political structure of Nietzsche’s “philosophy of the Antichrist,” by relating it to traditional political theology. By triangulating Nietzsche between his time and ours, between Bismarck’s Germany and post-9/11 America, Nietzsche’s Earth invites readers to rethink not just the philosopher himself but the very direction of human history.
 

Genres: Philosophy

264 pages, Hardcover

Published September 9, 2016

Reviews

[Sergej van Middendorp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shapiro weaves threads between Nietzsche’s thought, events of his time, and contemporary issues in our world. He illustrates the tensions between dualities like world and earth with great detail. Helpful in understanding tensions between human and system that are all too often taken for granted. Also shows that the development and integration of thinking that converged in Nietzsche’s work is still far from ‘complete’. Offers a rich source of inspiration for scholarship and practice.