"In this account, Julian Young provides the most comprehensive biography available today of the life and philosophy of the nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Young deals with the many puzzles created by the conjunction of Nietzsche's personal history and his work. Setting Nietzsche's thought in the context of his times, Young emphasizes the decisive influence of Plato and of Richard Wagner on Nietzsche's attempt to reform Western...

This biography of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche illuminates a man struggling constantly to reshape accepted ideas about society, morality, and religion. Drawing on close readings and archival research, Prideaux traces the outline of the philosopher's life, from his father's death when Nietzsche was four and his early education at his mother's knee, to his early, pivotal friendship with Wagner, his romance with writer Lou Salome, and his slow...