Fergus Cullen: Texts on Nietzsche's Politics

Some texts I have enjoyed, found useful, or been authoritatively recommended. Indefinitely under construction. Inevitably uncomprehensive. I will be augmenting this list for the foreseeable future as I read further into this interesting topic, and would be pleased to hear any suggestions. Where possible, I link straight to the text; where not, to the publisher.

Updated 21 June 2023.

Books

Benoist, Alain de, Nietzsche: Morale et “Grande Politique” (Paris: GRECE, 1973). —

Brandes, Georg, Friedrich Nietzsche (London: Heinemann, 1914). — Brandes was Nietzsche’s contemporary, and among the first, or perhaps the very first, to lecture on Nietzsche in an academic setting. His formula for Nietzsche’s politics, “aristocratic radicalism,” was endorsed by Nietzsche himself. Includes some correspondence between author and subject.

Detwiler, Bruce, Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990). —

Drochon, Hugo, Nietzsche’s Great Politics (Princeton: Princeton University press, 2016); “Introduction,” pp. 1 – 23. — A political scientist takes a broad and deep survey of Nietzsche’s whole oeuvre to reveal a coherent and detailed political philosophy.

Holub, Robert C., Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem: Between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). —

Losurdo, Domenico, Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel (Leiden: Brill, 2019). —

Schank, Gerd, “Rasse” und “Züchtung” bei Nietzsche (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2000). — On Nietzsche’s understanding of race and related concepts. An appendix on Nietzsche’s relationship to Gobineau collates most of the relevant references and biographical data and summarizes the scholarship.

Shapiro, Gary, Nietzsche’s Earth: Great Events, Great Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016). —

Stone, Dan, Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002). — Includes analyses of Nietzsche’s conservative-revolutionary English readers, including Oscar Levy, Anthony M. Ludovici and Maximilian Mügge.

Chapters

Dannhauser, Werner J., “Friedrich Nietzsche,” in History of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp. 828–50. — A Straussian impression of Nietzsche’s doctrine and its political consequences, rather than his political thinking proper.

Klemperer, Klemens von, Germany’s New Conservatism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), 1.3, “Nietzsche, Conservative and Nihilist,” pp. 36–40. — This short monograph is worth reading in its entirety as a discussion of the Conservative Revolution in Germany providing a counterpoint to Mohler (2018), infra, and as a discussion of three ambiguously Nietzschean thinkers, Moeller van den Bruck, Oswald Spengler and Ernst Jünger.

Leiter, Brian, “Nietzsche’s Moral and Political Philosophy,” 4, “Nietzsche’s Lack of a Political Philosophy,” in Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (summer 2021), online. — Leiter offers a brief survey of the literature, seeing a predominant division into the “Aristocratic Politics View” and the “Anti-politics View,” towards the latter of which Leiter himself leans, and which he has defended elsewhere. The bibliography is well worth a look.

Lukács, Georg, The Destruction of Reason (Atlantic Heights: Humanities Press, 1981), “Preface: On Irrationalism as an International Phenomenon in the Imperial Period,” pp. 3–33; 3, “Nietzsche as Founder of Irrationalism in the Imperialist Period,” pp. 309–99; ibid., Marxists Internet Archive (2005), online. —

Martin, Nicholas, “Breeding Greeks: Nietzsche, Gobineau and Classical Theories of Race,” in Paul Bishop (ed.), Nietzsche and Antiquity: His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition (Rochester, N.Y.: Camden House, 2004), pp. 40–53. — A comparative study of Nietzsche’s and Gobineau’s racial thought. Relies upon Schank (2000), supra. Caveat: Martin erroneously states (p. 42) that Nietzsche’s letter to his mother and sister of December 1865 names Gobineau.

Mohler, Armin, The Conservative Revolution in Germany 1918–1932: A Handbook, transl. F. Roger Devlin (Whitefish, Mt.: Radix–Washington Summit, 2018), 2.7, “Nietzsche as Educator,” pp. 54–8. — An indispensable book on Nietzsche’s political impact, worth reading in counterpoint with Klemperer (1968), supra.

Neumann, Harry, “The Case against Apolitical Morality: Nietzsche’s Interpretation of the Jewish Instinct,” in Studies in Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition, ed. James C. O’Flaherty, Timothy F. Sellner, Robert M. Helm (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985), pp. 29–46. — A reflection on Jewish history through Nietzsche’s work by a semi-forgotten student of Leo Strauss, with interesting passages on Spinoza and the Bible.

Essays

Georges Bataille, “Nietzsche et les fascistes,” Acéphale, 2 (21 January 1937), pp. 3–13; English translation at The Anarchist Library. —

Beiner, Ronald, “Transversal Racialization: Losurdo’s Account of What Is and Isn’t Proto-Fascist in Nietzsche,” written for a February 2021 workshop on Domenico Losurdo’s Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel, online. — A concise digest of Losurdo (2019), supra, with lucid observations of Beiner’s own. The political is at the centre of Nietzsche’s whole philosophical project. European unification is at the centre of his politics. Nietzsche, per Losurdo, understands this process in partly “racial” terms; but his is not a bog-standard “horizontal” racism but a “transversal” racism. This elucidates Nietzsche’s importance for Julius Evola. (And Evola’s influence upon Losurdo’s horizontal–transversal dichotomy is evident.)

Chatterton-Hill, Georges, “Gobineau, Nietzsche, Wagner,” The Nineteenth Century and After, 73.5 (1913), pp. 1,088–1,101. — Collects some important evidence in connection with Gobineau’s influence on Nietzsche.

Conway, Daniel, “Whither the ‘Good Europeans’? Nietzsche’s New World Order,” South Central Review, 26.3 (2009), pp. 40–60. — The role of intellectuals in Nietzsche’s designs on Europe.

Drochon, Hugo, “The Time Is Coming When We Will Relearn Politics,” Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 39 (2010), pp. 66–85. — Against the old fallacy of Nietzsche as “unpolitical” or politically “incoherent.”

—, “‘An Old Carriage with New Horses’: Nietzsche’s Critique of Democracy,” History of European Ideas, 42.8 (2016), pp. 1055–68. — Nietzsche’s critique of democracy sheds light on the birth of mass democracy and its condition today.

—, “Nietzsche Theorist of the State?” History of Political Thought, 38.2 (Summer 2017), pp. 323–44. — Nietzsche’s doctrine of the State from his earliest (“The Greek State”) to his latest texts (Genealogy).

Elbe, Stefan, “‘We Good Europeans…’: Genealogical Reflections on the Idea of Europe,” Millennium, 30.2 (2001), pp. 259–83. — Nietzschean political philosophy in action. Using Nietzsche’s analyses to think about contemporary European problems.

—, “What future for the European political community? Nietzsche, nationalism and the idea of the ‘good Europeans,’” paper given at the April 2006 E.C.P.R. Joint Sessions, Nicosia. — More Nietzschean political philosophy. The value of the figure of the “good European” today.

Emden, Christian J., “The Uneasy European: Nietzsche, Nationalism and the Idea of Europe,” Journal of European Studies, 38.1 (2008), pp. 27–51. — The strengths and weaknesses on Nietzsche’s anti-nationalism.

Knoll, Manuel, “Nietzsche’s Jewish Problem and Great Politics,” Nietzsche-Studien, 47.1 (November 2018), pp. 473–87. — Reading Holub (2016) with Drochon’s (2016) and Shapiro’s (2016) books. Nietzsche as “political Platonist”?

Levine, Emily J., “Just What Makes a ‘Good European’?” Foreign Policy (8 July 2015), online. — A perceptive introduction to the “good European,” with discussions of subsequent appropriations of the term.

Locchi, Giorgio, “Nietzsche et ses récupérateurs,” Nouvelle École, 18 (May–June 1972), pp. 83–8; Italian translation, uomo-libero.com (online archive); out-of-date draft English translation on this blog. — Critique of post-War attempts to depoliticize or otherwise defang Nietzsche’s work and legacy by a leading figure within G.R.E.C.E. and the “Nouvelle Droite.”

—, “Le cas Nietzsche,” Nouvelle École, 30 (autumn–winter 1978), pp. 45–54. — Part of a series (in the same issue of N.É.) treating Nietzsche and Wagner as twin-progenitors of a “Superhumanist” movement of which the Conservative Revolution, “Nouvelle Droite” and related currents would be parts.

Metrakas, Ted, “Domenico Losurdo’s Nietzsche,” The Daily Dialectic (30 November 2020), online. — A discussion of Losurdo (2019).

—, “Aristocracy: Plato vs. Nietzsche,” The Daily Dialectic (1 December 2020), online. — A comparison of Plato’s and Nietzsche’s aristocratic visions, with reference to contemporary “neoliberalism,” finds in the latter’s favour.

Mügge, Maximilian A., “Eugenics and the Superman: A Racial Science, and a Racial Religion,” The Eugenics Review, 1.3 (1909), pp. 184–93. — Discussed in chapter 3 of Stone (2002), supra. Nietzsche as eugenicist; eugenics as salvation.

Neumann, Harry, “Nietzsche: The Superman, the Will to Power and the Eternal Return,” Ultimate Reality and Meaning, 5.4 (December 1982), pp. 280–95. — A nihilist critique of the doctrine of the superman.

Noys, Benjamin, “Europe Endless: Crisis, Spirit and the End of Europe,” Crisis and Critique, 7.1 (13 January 2020), pp. 162–80. —

Nussbaum, Martha, “Is Nietzsche a political thinker?” International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 5.1 (1997), pp. 1–13. — Fairly characterised by its author as a polemic. Drochon’s book (2016), supra, critiques this text. Nietzsche fails as a political philosopher, having “nothing to offer” on “material need,” “procedural justification,” “liberty and its worth,” “racial, ethnic and religious difference,” “gender and family” and “justice between nations.”

Ruehl, Martin, “Politeia 1871: Nietzsche contra Wagner on the Greek State,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies: Supplement, 79 (2003), pp. 61 – 83. — A historian’s look at the essay on the Greek State, Nietzsche’s relations with Wagner, and the influence of Burckhardt.

Semenyaka, Olena, “Friedrich Nietzsche as the “Founder” of Conservative Revolution,” Plomin (18 October 2019), online; P.D.F. at academia.edu. — Nietzsche’s effect upon the Conservative Revolution in Germany, especially Heidegger and Jünger, and on the nouvelle droite.

Spencer, Richard B., “Politics in the Grand Style,” Radix (27 July 2018), online. — Nietzsche’s “super-nationalism” and “anti-anti-Semitism,” among other things.

Toscano, Alberto, “Race, Class, Tragedy: Nietzsche and the Fantasies of Europe,” Crisis and Critique, 7.1 (13 January 2020), pp. 236–59. —

Trotsky, Leon, “On the Philosophy of the Superman,” Vostochnoye Obozriene, 284 (22 December 1900), 286 (24 December 1900), 287 (25 December 1900), 289 (30 December 1900), transl. Mitchell Abidor, Marxists Internet Archive (2011), online. — Like many of the leftist readers of Nietzsche who followed him, Trotsky, not needing to “recuperate” his subject, takes him for what he is: an aristocratic radical.