The Anti-Christ [Paperback]

Friedrich Nietzsche (Author), H. L. Mencken (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2005

The Christian concept of a god-the god as the patron of the sick, the god as a spinner of cobwebs, the god as a spirit-is one of the most corrupt concepts that has ever been set up in the world... In him nothingness is deified, and the will to nothingness is made holySee Sharp Press; Tuscon, AZ -from The Anti-Christ He's one of the most debated thinkers of the 19th century: Nietzsche and his works have been by turns vilified, lauded, and subjected to numerous contradictory interpretations, and yet he remains a figure of profound import, and his works a necessary component of a well-rounded education. The Anti-Christ, first published in German in 1895, is absolutely vital to any meaningful understanding of Nietzsche the man and Nietzsche the philosopher. An insightful and entertaining indictment of Christianity, it has enraged and inspired generations of readers, and this 1920 translation, by H. L. Mencken, considered the best available, is almost as controversial as the work itself, highlighting the darkest side of Mencken's cynicism. Also available from Cosimo Classics: Nietzsche's The Use and Abuse of History. German psychologist and philosopher FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE (1844-1900) was appointed special professor of classical philology at the University of Basel at the precocious age of 24, but soon found himself dissatisfied with academic life and created an alternative intellectual society for himself among friends including composer Richard Wagner, historian Jakob Burckhardt, and theologian Franz Overbeck. Among his philosophical works are Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and Ecce Homo.

Editorial Reviews

Review

<DIV>"Bombastic, acerbic, and coldly analytical, The Anti-Christ exemplifies the muscularity of thought that surrounds the Nietzsche legend."  —Cletus Nelson, Eye

</DIV> --Eye --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Cosimo Classics (December 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596056819
• ISBN-13: 978-1596056817
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (68 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,690,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #81 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Nonfiction > Philosophy > Religious

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

129 of 136 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great to have this much-neglected translation back in print, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anti-Christ (Paperback)

Nietzche's "The Anti-Christ" was one of the last books Nietzsche wrote before the onset of his insanity in 1888. Unlike many of Nietzsche's other books, which raise tantalizing questions and examine experience from a variety of angles, some of them contradictory, "The Anti-Christ" is a relatively straightforward presentation of Nietzsche's critique of Christianity. Contrary to what many think, Nietzsche did not advocate the general abolition of Christianity. He thought it served the needs of the majority of people quite well, but believed it had psychologically destructive effects on the minority of people in a society who were most capable of intellectual, artistic, and other achievement.

Mencken was one of the great American prose stylists of the Century, and, as one would expect, his translation of "The Anti-Christ" is an outstanding read. I happen to think it is a far better read than R.J. Hollingdale's translation, which is the one most often used by scholars and students. Whether it is more or less faithful to Nietzsche's original is a question I cannot answer, not being sufficiently fluent in German.

In any event, it's great to see Mencken's much-neglected 1917 translation back in print.

193 of 229 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good but not the best, October 12, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Anti-Christ (Paperback)

The book has truth in it. It is good but not the best. Lewis in An Encounter With A Prophet acknowledges all of the false teachings of the Christian Church but does not lose God in the process.

91 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Translation, April 27, 2000

By 

"gsibbery" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Anti-Christ (Paperback)

This is Nietzsche's most vigorous work; it conains in little over one hundred pages, a summary of his later philosophy, and as such, should probably be read after all of his other works if one means to avoid misunderstanding what Nietzsche is saying. He portrays Christianity in gory detail as the religion of revenge, dishonesty, small-mindedness and pity which it is, and a leading cause of the west's descent into nihilism. (A reading of this book almost forms a mini spiritual biography of western civilisation of the last three centuries). The adherence to a religion like Christianity forms a sort of enslavement to an outdated meaning system thus causing anyone with a scrap of intellectual integrity to lie to theirselves as a means of supporting a bankrupt world-view and while appropriate for Zarathustra's "last men", is death for all higher types, and had waged a bitter war against all manner of vitality, stregnth and honour which are the hallmarks of die ubermensche. He talks of the psychology of the priest and the natural hatred of science that they all possess as well as the slave morality and cowardice that Christianity promotes, but for all the vim that the book possesses, it is not a very scholarly work, and contains many errors. Nietzsche understandably finds it difficult to restrain himself, but this gives the work a sort of amateurish tone. Mencken has done a wonderful job here -- all the more because he had a deep appreciation for Nietzsche -- the man and his work. For those who cannot understand Nietzsche's "hatred" of Christianity, I would recommend a very thorough reading of the Geneology of Morals, which goes into much greater detail and is much more scholarly and will provide better insight into the anti-Chrsitian perspective. One of the jewels of modern literature.