Is God dead? Is morality just a ‘useful mistake’? Can science explain anything?

Friedrich Nietzsche, who lost his sanity hugging an old horse being whipped by its owner in 1899, is without question one of the most important, influential and yet supremely enigmatic, controversial thinkers of the past 150 years.

His work is notoriously difficult, often contradictory and opaque. He was appropriated by the Nazis and yet clearly anticipated existentialism, psychoanalysis, deconstruction and postmodernism. He was master of the philosophical soundbite, the aphorism, and his proclamations, from ‘God is dead’ to ‘whatever does not kill me only makes me stronger’, have made him famous – but was there method in his madness?

Introducing Nietzsche, brilliantly illustrated by Piero, explores this firebrand philosopher and shows in his work not only a fearless critique of vanity, religion, nationalism and even philosophy itself, but a startlingly accurate diagnosis of the ills of the 21st-century world.