Description: Friedrich Nietzsche was acutely sensitive to place: to the taste of sea air, to the sweep of wind across the coast, to the narrow confines of medieval walls or the tumbling breadth of an Alpine vista framed by the window near his writing desk. He was convinced that the effects of environment, climate, and terrain on one's life and thought were both tangible and profound. In The Good European, David Farrell Krell and Donald L. Bates explore for the first time -- and with uncommon insight -- Nietzsche's Epicurean appreciation of the beautiful cities and landscapes in which he worked and their effects on his thought.

Bringing to bear their own individual talents and training in philosophy and photography, the authors gradually immerse us in Nietzsche's aesthetic world. From Saxony to the Swiss Alps, from the Riviera to the Dolomites of Recoaro, Krell and Bates skillfully guide us, in word and image, through the course of Nietzsche's philosophical thought and continental wanderings, and along his often painful path from genius to madness. Krell's masterful translations of the thinker's most evocative writings on his work sites -- many appearing here for the first time in English -- merge seamlessly with Bates's penetrating photographic essays. We are, in essence, invited to share with Nietzsche, through his voice and vision, his own experience of these extraordinary sites.

The Good European is at once a grand aesthetic experience, a unique travel guide, and a revealing portrayal of the enigmatic Nietzsche as both philosopher and human being.

"For, even if I should be a bad German, I am at all events a very good Eropean". -- Nietzche to His Mother, From Sils-Maria in The HighAlps

"He possessed the most conspicuously developed talent for discovering the privileged places on Earth". -- Meta Von Salis on Nietzsche

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