The Overman in the Marketplace: Nietzschean Heroism in Popular Culture

by Ishay Landa

The Overman in the Marketplace explores the emergence and significance of "a Nietzschean heroic model" in twentieth-century popular culture, some notable examples of which are such pop culture icons as James Bond, Tarzan, Hannibal Lecter and Ayn Rand's heroes. Taking on the nineteenth-century romantic rebellion against realism, the Nietzschean hero becomes a crusader against the perceived leveling-down of mass society. The bourgeois, realistic hero is ousted in favor of a neo-aristocratic hero who roams beyond good and evil, no longer bound to any universalistic mission, in fact doing all he can to repel the rising tides of egalitarianism. This engaging book aims at integrating the analysis of Nietzschean heroism into a comprehensive social and ideological critique. The Overman in the Marketplace is a captivating text that will appeal to those interested in philosophy and popular culture.

Genres: Philosophy

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 13, 2007

About the author

Ishay Landa Ph.D. (2004) in History, Ben-Gurion University, Israel, is Visiting Senior Lecturer in History at the Israeli Open University. His scholarly work as a historian of ideas focuses on reconstructing the intellectual genealogy of fascism and its complex relationship to the intellectual history of the West. He has also published on Nietzscheanism, Marxism, political theory and popular culture.