What Nietzsche Really Said

Cutting through decades of ideological distortions, Montinari offers a lucid, balanced, and rigorously researched introduction to Nietzsche's life and thought.

Mazzino Montinari’s classic introduction to Nietzscheis remarkable for its clarity, precision, and critical depth translated into English for the first time. The product of years of archival research in Weimar, where Montinari co-edited the definitive edition of Nietzsche’s writings with Giorgio Colli, this book dismantles the myths that have long distorted Nietzsche’s legacy, from fascist appropriations to doctrinaire readings by self-styled Nietzscheans.Montinari presents Nietzsche not as a system-builder or a prophet of ready-made answers, but as a restless, critical thinker whose reflections on modernity, power, and culture unfolded through a lifelong process of questioning. Rather than offering solutions, Nietzsche delivered a radical diagnosis of Europe's moral, political, and cultural crises—one that remains powerfully relevant today, including for Marxist and critical thought.

A concise yet profound exploration, What Nietzsche Said is essential reading for students, scholars, and anyone seeking a sober, unvarnished understanding of one of modern philosophy’s most influential figures