Nietzsche in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series) [Hardcover]

Strathern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1996 | ISBN-10: 1566631203 | ISBN-13: 978-1566631204

In Nietzsche in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Nietzsche's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes selections from Nietzsche's work; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; and chronologies that place Nietzsche within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Strathern, a graduate of Dublin's Trinity College, has lectured in philosophy and mathematics and written history, travel literature, and fiction. His attempt to provide the reader with accessible guidance to the ideas of a half dozen great names in the canon of Western philosophy fails on all counts except readability. The time given in the title for each presentation is about three times that even the least-informed reader might require, for these books are nothing but outlines. Half of each volume highlights the more peculiar details of the individual philosopher's personal life, with passing remarks about one or two substantive ideas from his work. The remaining pages include surprisingly brief quotations from the works (an epigraphic style suitable to presenting a sample of Nietzsche's writing but hardly appropriate to Kant's), chronologies (including one five-page "Philosophical Dates" that is repeated in each tiny volume), and a suggestion of four or five books for further reading. The intended audience for this series is unclear as there is too little substance to provide either the sort of introduction offered by such competing works as the Writers and Readers's illustrated series "For Beginners" (e.g., Robert Cavalier's Plato for Beginners, 1990) or critical understanding of difficult concepts as Frederick Copleston and William Jones have achieved in their histories of Western thought (e.g., Copleston's A History of Philosophy, 1985). Strathern's publisher promises more than a dozen future volumes in this series but, given the severe limitations of the first six under review here, it is not possible to recommend that we look forward to them.?Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Well-written, clear and informed, they have a breezy wit about them...I find them hard to stop reading. (Bernstein, Richard New York Times )

Witty, illuminating, and blessedly concise. (Jim Holt Wall Street Journal )

Each of these little books is witty and dramatic and creates a sense of time, place, and character...I cannot think of a better way to introduce oneself and one's friends to Western civilization. (Katherine A. Powers The Boston Globe )

A godsend in this era of the short attention span. (Daryl Royster Alexander New York Times )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 85 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R. Dee (September 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566631203
• ISBN-13: 978-1566631204
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,374,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Authoritative, Not Inciteful, Not Useful, Not Nietzsche, January 13, 2004

By 

Samuel Leyva (McAllen, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nietzsche in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series) (Paperback)

Paul Strathern in his short little tome on Friedrich Nietzsche manages to say almost nothing that is neccessary to justify the ambitious title of this book or the Publisher's claim that Strathern deciphers "philosophical thought in [an] entertaining and accessible fashion...making it comprehensible and interesting to almost everyone." On page 54, for instance, he writes: "The parable of Zarathustra is childishly simple, and on reflection it remains so. Yet its message is profound despite this." This is the sort of gibberish that infects his analysis in the eight-page section entitled Key Philosophical Concepts. Indeed, his insights are worthy of a contemporary journalist and just as depthless. Almost anyone involved in the discipline of Philosophy could have informed Strathern of the true merits of the above statement, but Starthern, although he has "lectured" in philosophy and mathematics according to the Author Blurb at the end of the book, apparently had no one reliable at hand to perform this service or to question his many demeaning and snide remarks about Nietzsche's work and his Philosophy. Psychologically, of course, this can be explained by the blurb previously sited which indicate's that Strathern has lectured in both Philosophy and Mathematics. He was undoubtedly more suited to being a professor of Math than Philosophy to judge from the quote just mentioned. The other Reviewer here who mentions his comments on page 52 about Eternal Recurrence is absolutely correct in their analysis but doesn't really go far enough in denouncing this rubbish. This is the sort of book dishonest publisher's foist on the unsuspecting public (and students) in the hope of fleecing them of their coin, albeit very little in this case. In spite of this one cannot rebuke the Publisher or Strathern enough for their part in this micro-atrocity. Nietzsche is the single most important philospher of the last two hundred years and he deserves more than this philstine treatment with its merde spread from cover to cover like a Tom Wolfe op-ed piece for the February edition of the New Yorker Magazine. Stay away from this silly book and don't waste your money or your time (as I did). Read Nietzsche the Philosopher instead or Kaufmann's book (as I am now doing) for a better overview than you'll ever get here. There. I've said enough. You get the picture.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No philosophy; plenty of gossip, April 26, 2003

By 

Jmark2001 (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nietzsche in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series) (Paperback)

Well, Strathern is certainly entertaining, if not informative. He gives us the dirt on each philosopher, tells us who was overweight, cheap, pushed people around, etc. This would be great if we were reading about movie stars or politicians but I bought these books in order to understand something about what these philosophers thought. He does reserve a few pages at the end of each volume to tells us one or two of their ideas and gives us a handful of quotes. A total waste of money unless you hate your philosophy classes so much that you want to hear how awful the personal lives of the philosophers were. A new low in publishing.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars In the Age of Wiki, A Book More Worthless Than Ever, April 18, 2008

By 

Jamal Morelli "Jamjam" (Fes, Morocco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nietzsche in 90 Minutes (Philosophers in 90 Minutes Series) (Paperback)

I can't find any value in a work like this - in this day and age, one can surf the web for 90 minutes and be far more enlightened than this.
Alot of the time I know am in the presence of someone who cannot stand the grandness of Nietzsche's vision - he relays this to the listener in tone and weasel words. The author doesn't like Nietzsche - which for a reader is worse than hating.

The rest of the time, one has the author makes it his job to apologize for the Nietzsche's excesses twisted by those who would willfully distort the racial philosophy, etc.

To the writer's credit? If you hate Nietzsche, you can use this to make yourself sound smarter in your argument with a Nietzsche-lover. If you haven't read him, you won't want to.